Thursday, 28 August 2025

Bus safety

Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (09:47): I would actually like to join in with Minister Tierney and express my condolences to all of those impacted by the bus accident in Geelong. It also strikes me that it is an opportune time to remind not only this place but the ministers and the government and even the Premier that for too long we have allowed buses to roll off the production line in this state – on all sides of politics; this is not a partisan issue.

I have raised this issue previously. In the early days of me being elected as a member of Parliament, President, you will recall also there was a bus accident in Newcastle, and it impacted very many constituents in our electorate. And yet there is no concerted effort to actually review bus safety, so I would ask the government to do exactly that. These accidents happen with such regularity that we are just waiting for tragedy to occur and be reported. We know that the buses have inherent design flaws. We know that every child should be seatbelted in a bus – in fact every person. No-one should be allowed to stand. We also desperately need to look at the design of the glass, because as we learned from Newcastle, if you have glass that splinters rather than shatters, the splinters turn into weapons and very many casualties, if not loss of life, occur as a result. It is not only about the glass, it is not only about the seatbelts, it is not only about those standing – it is also about the safety of the bus drivers, just as you would at an airport where you have a separate cabin for bus drivers and a separate cabin for those who are passengers. It is time to review bus safety in this state.