Wednesday, 19 November 2025

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:23): (2151) My adjournment is to the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek is for the minister to oppose the federal government’s push to reduce the default speed limit nationwide. Federal Labor minister and member for Ballarat Catherine King is presiding over a disastrous plan to slash the default speed limit from 100 kilometre an hour to a range between 90 and 70 kilometres an hour on unsigned country roads. While I accept that the national road toll is worsening, the Albanese Labor government’s solution is ill considered, short-sighted and thoughtless. In Victoria it is a temporary fix to a perennial problem created by the Allan Labor government, which is deliberately underinvesting in country roads. Matters could not be more different in New South Wales. According to recently released Parliamentary Budget Office data, this government is spending 13 per cent less on road maintenance per kilometre than New South Wales. The New South Wales Minister for Roads and Minister for Regional Transport Jenny Aitchison noted that they will not be implementing blanket speed zone reductions across regional New South Wales. She is not the only one – Western Australia Labor Senator Glenn Sterle called the proposal rubbish and nonsense, noting that the road transport industry struggles day in and day out to be safe, sustainable and viable. I could not agree with them more, and I sincerely hope this government will do the same.

If a council wants to reduce the speed limit on a particular road and advises the department accordingly, that is fine. But imposing a blanket limit on rural roads with little consideration of their condition frankly beggars belief. As it is, Australia’s labour productivity has been steadily declining over the last 20 years, from 1.8 per cent in financial year 2004 to 0.8 per cent in financial year 2025. According to the National Party’s Kevin Hogan, reducing the speed limit to 70 kilometres an hour would see productivity fall by around 30 per cent on average. In hourly terms, a blanket 80-kilometre speed limit would see a Vite Vite resident spending an extra 30 hours annually behind the wheel to do daily school runs between Skipton and back. In dollar terms, for a dairy processor running 10 trucks daily, an extra 30 minutes per trip could cost several hundred thousand dollars annually. Country Victorians travel long distances for work, school, health care and daily life. They should not be punished because governments neglect their roads. I call on the minister to stand with regional communities, reject this proposal and fix our roads.