Motor Vehicles (Nominal Defendant) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 26 May 2016.)

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (11:03): I rise to speak on behalf of the government on this bill, and I am hoping that, along with our position on this bill and the bill which is due to be debated following this, finally we can put to bed the sorry saga of the opposition's handling of the new cycling laws.

This is the latest and sixth iteration of the opposition's position on the new cycling laws: each more poorly researched, tenuously consulted on and fundamentally flawed as the last. It is important to remember the process that we have gone through to get to where we are today. Back in August 2014, more than two years ago, the government convened a citizens' jury in order to address the question of how cyclists and motorists could more safely share the road, given that there is certainly an increasing trend of both forms of transport increasing in our community.

In January 2015, some 20 months ago, the government announced what its position would be in response to the citizens' jury, in particular including two changes to the regulations governing cycling behaviour on our roads and on our road-related areas, about the minimum passing distance and a capacity to cycle on footpaths for adults—indeed, returning to the spirit of the Australian Road Rules, which all states have signed up to and which, until the change in regulation in October 2015, we had made a departure from.

After we made that announcement, we conducted a consultation process, which I understand received 1,600 submissions from members of the South Australian community as well as from interested stakeholder organisations. Support for both measures was in excess of 70 per cent of these submissions. It is important to note that not one of those 1,600 submissions was received from a member of the opposition—clearly, a complete lack of engagement in this issue.

In October 2015, the government's regulations were tabled in parliament, giving effect to these laws. In those 10 months between January, when we announced that these laws would be coming in, and October, when the laws did come into effect, clearly there had been no consideration by the opposition of whether they supported, or otherwise, these new laws. The reason I say that is because of the constantly changing position the Leader of the Opposition and his then transport spokesperson had on this issue.

Immediately after the government announced its intention for these new laws in January, the then transport spokesperson said, 'Yes, the opposition supports these laws.' That was the day after we made that announcement in January 2015. As we got closer to the implementation date in October, on 9 October, the opposition is reported as no longer supporting the laws. So that is position No. 2. Barely two weeks later than that, as we came closer to the date of implementation, the opposition is then reported as, in fact, supporting the government in these laws and supporting the government by virtue of not supporting a disallowance motion in the other place against these regulations.

Then, barely a week later than that, the same transport spokesperson (the member for Mitchell) announces, in fact, that the Liberal Party would be supporting the disallowance motion. So, there we have the first four of six different positions on these cycling laws. Why would you continue changing your position on these laws? Clearly, there has been no debate or discussion in the Liberal party room about how they line up on these laws. Presumably, the leader was not aware of this issue or, if he was aware of this issue, did not believe that members of the South Australian community cycled or needed further and better protections in engaging in that activity.

Presumably, he believed that the people in Dunstan do not engage in this activity. This is surprising because the council which superintends its responsibilities in his electorate, the Council of Norwood Payneham and St Peters, shortly after the introduction of these laws conducted a study and produced a report on how they were being carried out in the community. That report was very supportive of the conduct of both motorists and cyclists when it came to the minimum passing distance as well as the ability to cycle on footpaths. Yet, of course, I am the first to admit that there has been community consternation about what it would mean out on the road and out on the footpath for people cycling under the purview of these new laws.

Certainly, there had been concerns raised at council level, not necessarily by the Local Government Association or, indeed, by councils themselves, but by individual councillors. At that point in time, the opposition said, 'We are going to conduct our own consultation process,' and they came up with a web-based consultation which, I have to say, unhelpfully misconstrued the laws and presented the community with some incorrect information. Nonetheless, they conducted their consultation and did not publish their results until 30 December 2015.

If you were seeking to bin an unpopular position as an opposition party, you would probably choose the lead-up to New Year's Eve and the midst of the Boxing Day sales, when nobody is really paying attention to political issues, to bin your position on something, and that is exactly what the member for Mitchell and the Liberal opposition did. They announced that, in fact, as a fifth position, they were back with their original position supporting these cycling laws, and then, of course, the sixth and final position is the member for Unley—the current shadow transport spokesperson on behalf of the opposition—with this Motor Vehicles (Nominal Defendant) Amendment Bill.

This bill is based on the belief that there is an enormous problem out in our community leading to a significant number of accidents which are causing uninsured people exposure to high medical bills, which needs assistance from the state, and the assistance from the state should be provided on the basis that we expand the compulsory third-party compensation regime to uninsured cyclists so that they can be claimed against, should they be involved in an accident on footpaths. Unfortunately, there is a significant flaw in the logic behind the member for Unley's bill.

When pushed on talkback radio about whether this was necessary, he conceded, nearly immediately, that there were very few or virtually no serious or significant accidents that were occurring on footpaths. Instead, he and a very small number of other commentators collected themselves around one incident which occurred when one cyclist who was travelling on a footpath did collide with a pedestrian. I am advised by the attending services at that accident that the cyclist stopped, checked if the pedestrian was okay and, according to the advice that I have received, offered to provide details to that pedestrian. The pedestrian, for whatever reason—

Mr Pisoni: You stand by that, do you? You stand by that in the parliament?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, member for Unley!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: You have had the opportunity—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: You have had the opportunity to make your weak, tenuous argument.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am on my feet. Sit down.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: You have failed.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sit down.

Mr Pisoni: If you are confident, stand by it.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Unley, you are called to order.

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! You are warned for the first time. I will not have the business of the house disrupted in this fashion. Other members are trying to listen to the debate. You will be given the same protection if you speak. It is unorderly, and you know it, to interject, and it is not orderly to respond. While I am on my feet, minister, you actually get to sit down for a minute. If we are going to continue this, it will have to be in silence while listening to other speakers as they speak. You are on your first warning, member for Unley, and it is only ten past 11 or whatever the time is.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. The discomfort that the member for Unley is currently experiencing—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Back to the nub of the speech, please.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —is due to how tenuous his argument is in this bill. There is no evidence out on the road that there is such a significant problem that motorists should be expected to foot the bill for what the member for Unley clearly believes is a significant amount of exposure that people are suffering through this lack of coverage. As I said earlier, he was very quick to admit on talkback radio that there are virtually no incidents which would require the extension of this insurance coverage, so that is the logical flaw in the member for Unley's bill.

Let's put that to one side. Let's assume that the member for Unley's first contention, which must have been evident in framing this bill, was that there was a significant exposure to people who were unable to be claimed against. If this was the case, then surely motorists would be bearing a significant burden, a significant additional cost, on top of their compulsory third-party insurance fees, yet that is also something which is denied by the member for Unley in his comments in the media, publicly and in this place in support of his bill. So, because of the logical flaw in the member for Unley's bill, and the fact that the advice to date is there is not sufficient evidence of occurrences out on the road or footpath to require this measure, the government does not support this bill.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (11:14): In closing the debate, I will start by picking up on some of the comments made by the minister. First, the minister was not prepared to unequivocally put on the record that he knows what happened when that pedestrian was hit by the cyclist, who only turned themselves into the police when CCTV footage was identified from a business from across the road and a witness to the accident came forward. I have spoken to the witness, and I can tell you that the witness said the cyclist did not offer—and I am prepared to stand by that, unlike the minister—their details at that time. The cyclist then presented themselves to a police station once the CCTV footage was exposed.

I brought this bill to the parliament because, as with many others in the community, the Liberal Party is concerned about safeguards to ensure that pedestrians have some financial security in the case of an injury if they have been hit by a cyclist who does not stop or who cannot, for whatever reason, be identified. The minister and the current state government are happy for the added risk and cost of allowing unlimited access to the footpath, with no speed limit for bicycles, to be borne by those who may be injured.

We need to be able to share the footpaths in safety and with confidence and not to amend the situation as it currently stands, created once again by this Labor government's sloppy attitude, would be unacceptable and unreasonable. Under the current arrangements, because a bicycle is not an insurable vehicle for CTP purposes, an injured person could incur substantial medical and other expenses and be left totally to their own devices if they were hit by a cyclist who, for whatever reason, chose not to stop and give details.

The minister has, on numerous occasions in debating this on media, said that there are mechanisms in place in order to deal with this situation, but those mechanisms do not deal with the situation when the rider is unidentified. Councils are exempt from being sued or from having any responsibility for somebody being hit by a cyclist who does not stop, or any other incident that may happen on council land, including tripping up on a footpath.

Most cyclists are insured if they are members of bike groups, as many cover insurance, and the vast majority of cyclists take their responsibilities as citizens seriously and do stop and would stop if they were put in this position, but as in any group there are those who feel that they can shun their responsibility. There is no option for those victims who are left with their own medical bills, like that victim we saw on the CCTV footage in Currie Street earlier in the year. The minister's only response has been that it would somehow be a financial insurance cost burden borne by motorists to give pedestrians injured by an unregistered bicycle the same rights as a pedestrian hit by an uninsured motorist.

However, as the figures highlight in my second reading speech, the number of current uninsured vehicle claims lodged as nominal defendant claims is a very small proportion compared with overall claims. The minister also forgets that the vast majority of people who ride bikes pay CTP insurance: they own cars and they pay that insurance already. I think there have been six serious injuries recorded over the last six years, according to the Department of Transport figures, but there is a risk that over time we will see that increase. We do not know how many of those had an insurance mechanism available for those victims, but over time we will expect to see more people as more bicycles are used.

The Department of the Premier and Cabinet's own figures tell us that by 2020 there will be 600,000 using bicycles in South Australia, up from 220,000 in 2013. So we will see a three-fold increase, basically, in the number of people using bicycles, which is a terrific—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Unley needs to finish off now, if he can.

Mr PISONI: So I do encourage members to support the bill.

The house divided on the second reading:

Ayes 18

Noes 22

Majority 4

Second reading thus negatived.