Statutes Amendment (Vehicle Inspections and South Eastern Freeway Offences) Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 9 August 2017.)

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The deputy leader has risen. Is she going to be lead speaker?

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (19:56): For a change, no, but I might end up being the only one. I will commence by referring to the Statutes Amendment (Vehicle Inspections and South Eastern Freeway Offences) Bill to amend the Motor Vehicles Act 1959 and the Road Traffic Act 1961. This matter comes before the parliament as a result of Deputy State Coroner Anthony Schapel after the death of Mr James William Venning, tragically killed whilst on the South Eastern Freeway, and as a result of some consultation with SAPOL, SARTA, which is the representative of the transport industry, and the TWU, the union representing drivers and the like, together with the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator.

Whilst I am sure that the shadow minister for transport will admirably outline exactly what this bill will do, how it is to operate and the aspects that we will be supporting, I just want to add a couple of things. Firstly, the area of the South Eastern Freeway descending into Adelaide, beginning at Crafers and ending at the Cross, Portrush and Glen Osmond roads intersection, is almost wholly in my electorate. It is fair to say that in the 15 years or so that I have represented most of that area—the boundaries have changed a bit—there have been substantial issues relating to transport in it.

The multiple layers of vehicles using the South Eastern Freeway have been serviced by police, MFS, CFS and ambulance services probably more often than they should have and not always as a result of trucks colliding with a pedestrian, bus or other vehicle, but largely heavy trucks. The difficulty is that although the number of incidents of collision or error of the drivers in vehicles is many times more in motor vehicles than in trucks or heavy vehicles, the fact is that the bigger the vehicle, the more often the impact of a collision or an accident is catastrophic.

That is the reality. It is a bit like saying that flying in a balloon or a glider is actually safer in terms of the number of accidents relative to that of motor vehicles and injury or death. The reality is that sometimes in these vehicles, the likely outcome of a collision, especially if you are in the smaller vessel or vehicle, is that you are the one who will be dead. The outcomes can be catastrophic.

The government's decision not to proceed with another arrester bed—which will now be called a safety ramp, I think, under the new bill—is disappointing. I have said so in the past, and I maintain that view. The fact is that we have a very steep descent into Adelaide via this piece of road. I think it is only equalled by the descent into Perth, in a major city in Australia. It is clearly dangerous if heavy vehicles are travelling at speed and at a speed that is too high to be arrested in the event of error.

In Western Australia, my understanding is that they have adopted an approach where a heavy vehicle coming into the area of descent has to be physically stopped at the top of the hill and then progress from a standing position. The effect of that, obviously, is to ensure that the vehicle is at a slow pace as it alights to go down the hill, rather than coming over the top of the hill and screaming down, and then trying to reduce the speed after that occasion. Again, I am disappointed that this has not been taken up. It has certainly been fed in.

The other thing that I am very disappointed about is that the government has insisted on progressing with the development of cycling lanes along Portrush Road, which is where the base meets this stretch of road, notwithstanding that it is still a major road for heavy transport, which takes the bulk of the heavy transport that then traverses Adelaide and usually is en route to the north-western area through Port Adelaide and the like, for obvious reasons.

The choice for the government was not to progress with that idea until they had completed the north-south corridor, when there would be some relief on Portrush Road from what is more than 10,000 trucks and heavy vehicles going down that road every day. The combination of cars, motorcycles, buses and trucks, together with cyclists encouraged along that laneway, I think is a disaster waiting to happen. I am very disappointed that the government has taken the view of progressing it at this stage, in the full knowledge that I and others have indicated that they would have our support to progress dedicated cycle lanes once we had had a chance to have an alternative route for trucks and buses. However, they have pressed ahead.

The second issue I raise is the necessity, one day, for somebody to deal with the intersection between Glen Osmond Road, Cross Road and Portrush Road, which traverses over Glen Osmond Road and what then becomes the freeway. My understanding, from Mr Rod Hook, who is a former head of the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure, is that there are some reports, and some in fact early plans, to provide a grade separation at that intersection.

Quite clearly, even when the South Road development is completed, if there is to be an alternate route from the bottom of the South Eastern Freeway across to South Road, then there will need to be a safe way of taking those vehicles either on to Cross Road or down Glen Osmond Road, whatever the ultimate decision is when it is made in that regard. As I understand it, originally it was to be Cross Road although there have been some upgrades to Glen Osmond Road and Greenhill Road, which may or may not be to facilitate heavy transport.

In any event, I am happy to be guided by the experts in that regard, but there has to be some advance in that grade separation if we are truly to have a safe escape route for vehicles that get into trouble, especially heavy vehicles, coming down the freeway. Clearly, we are not going to change the incline, as that would be a major engineering feat and would probably wreck the tunnel that has been put there at great expense. However, I make the point that somewhere along the way we are going to need either an extra arrester bed (or whatever we are going to call them now) and/or that grade separation.

Finally, can I say, while the minister is here, that one of the concerns I also have is in respect of heavy vehicles. This was brought to my attention only a few weeks ago by the horticultural people who, of course, have their trucks up the top. Some of them come down the South Eastern Freeway to deliver their produce; others cut through the back of the hills and go directly north. Where vehicles are over 4.5 tonnes there is an obligation to have a heavy vehicle licence. That is quite reasonable for obvious reasons.

What has overtaken the validity of that as a practical application is that now a number of tractors and other vehicles have grown in size and weight and are frequently over the 4.5 tonnes, which requires a person to spend up to $2,000 in the mandatory training necessary to get the certificate to then apply and pay the $17 or whatever it is to get the heavy vehicle licence. It is not through the minister’s department because I think it is now over in the Premier’s department—he pinched all that money some time ago–and he now has Service SA.

This is something that needs to be considered, and I would ask the transport department to at least have a look at that. Obviously we have to balance safety with these things, but it seems to me that we have small, compact tractors but they are especially loaded over the 4.5 tonnes and, frankly, should not always have to have applied the level of training and obligation just to be able to have someone drive them, frequently not even on a road such as the one we are talking about. Nevertheless, perhaps that is a matter that is due for review and it could be given some consideration. With that, I indicate that the member for Unley, our shadow minister, will now advise the parliament of our position.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (20:08): I am the lead speaker on the bill and I indicate that we support the bill. It was drafted and developed in consultation with SAPOL, the South Australian Road Transport Association, the TWU, and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator. The group, of course, was informed by the work of the Deputy State Coroner, Anthony Schapel, with regard to the death of Mr James William Venning on the South Eastern Freeway.

The South Eastern Freeway carries a weekday average of 50,000 vehicles with over 5,000 being trucks or buses. It is the government’s contention that if the road is used responsibly by well-maintained heavy vehicles in correct gear, the road is safe and therefore there should be no problems, and this bill is obviously a big stick to encourage safe behaviour on that road.

That road comes in from the South-East, and it is our link to the vast majority of Australia's population on the east coast and a major truck route. Those trucks come down the South Eastern Freeway and disperse on their way predominantly into the industrial areas to the north and the north-west of Adelaide via Cross Road, Glen Osmond Road or Portrush Road. Glen Osmond Road and right through my electorate of Unley, and at times it can be quite a ride to try to pull out of a side street onto Glen Osmond Road, particularly if you are turning right. The same applies to Portrush Road, which I believe has even more traffic than Glen Osmond Road and more of the heavier traffic.

We know that the intersection itself will be in need of a significant capital upgrade in the foreseeable future, and the member for Bragg spoke about some grade separations. We know that as freight routes get busier as we become a bigger trading nation and products are shipped from coast to coast and beyond, we will be seeing more trucks, and of course more trains, shifting freight around the country. We also know that that is the link to Mount Barker, one of the fastest growing areas in South Australia. An extraordinarily large number of the people who live in Mount Barker, one or both parents in the family, will come to the suburbs or into the city to work, so it is very much a commuter road as well, so it is very important that the road is safe.

We also need to look to the future here in South Australia and ensure that our road infrastructure can deliver our products to markets interstate and overseas. Earlier this year, the Liberal Party announced our Globe Link plan, a plan to build both a rail bypass and a freight bypass outside the area that this act affects. This project, when it is complete, will see fewer trucks and fewer risks to drivers of other vehicles because many more trucks will use that detour to head to where they are going in the north, the north-west or beyond into regional South Australia or even through to Western Australia.

There will be no need for them to cut through the suburbs. It will speed up their journey and make it much safer for those who are using all suburban roads and, because there will be a rail link as well, it will help that section of Cross Road, in particular at 7.20 any morning, when you are held up for five or six minutes as a very long freight train goes through just as the peak period of traffic is starting to develop. We know that those trains will get longer because of the federal government's program of putting in more overtaking loops in the rail between Adelaide and Melbourne. I think that 11 loops are going in, and it will mean that trains can go from 1.5 kilometres to 1.8 kilometres in length, and they will have that longer passing lane or siding that they will be able to use in order to pass an oncoming train.

That will obviously mean that those longer trains will be taking longer to get through our intersections through the suburbs. Another significant intersection affected by that, of course, is the Torrens Road intersection on the edge of the member for Adelaide's seat. I think there are about 17-odd trains a day at the moment, but we are expecting to see that grow well into the mid-twenties and higher as the freight business continues to grow throughout the nation.

The bill itself is aimed at fixing the problems that are generally caused by a small minority of drivers and truck operators with poorly maintained vehicles and bad driving habits. I would like to thank Steve Shearer from the South Australian Road Transport Association for his input not just on this bill but on all issues to do with heavy vehicle safety. He is a very strong advocate for heavy vehicle safety, and he is much more interested in the cause of accidents and how to fix them rather than in any politics or any particular side issue. He is much more interested in the wellbeing of the local contracting operators and their drivers. Of course, they are family businesses and deserve the support of a strong advocate, and I thank Steve for taking on that role.

The bill amends the Road Traffic Act 1961 to create two specific offences for drivers of heavy vehicles on the section of the South Eastern Freeway descending into Adelaide beginning between Crafers and the intersection of Cross Road, Portrush Road and Glen Osmond Road. Again, that intersection will certainly require some major work in coming years in order to deal with the increased traffic.

Offence 1 is based on Australian Road Rule 108, failing to descend the downward track in low gear, and offence 2 is exceeding the speed limit by 10 km/h or more. Both are punishable by an expiation fee of $992, six demerit points and escalating periods of licence disqualification or suspension of six months for a first offence, 12 months for a second and three months in addition for a third or subsequent offence. South Australia Police will be able to issue an immediate loss of licence roadside.

For safety camera detected offences, the Motor Vehicles Act 1959 will be amended to enable the Registrar of Motor Vehicles to apply for a period of licence disqualification or suspension on expiation. Heavy vehicle owners who fail to nominate the offending driver will also be subject to these penalties. For second and subsequent offences, there is no fine. Instead, in addition to six demerit points, a disqualification of licence will apply of not less than three years in addition to a maximum imprisonment of two years. Previous offences for speed or gears on the freeway will be used to determine penalties.

The penalty that the court may impose for a body corporate or conviction is a fine of not less than $25,000 and up to $50,000. The fines for bodies corporate that choose not to nominate drivers have been substantially increased to comprise expiation fees (currently sitting at just $300 for other speeding offences) and $25,000 for a speeding offence. This is to encourage bodies corporate to identify the drivers of speeding vehicles.

The Motor Vehicles Act 1959 and Road Traffic Act 1961 will be amended to allow for all heavy vehicles to be subject to periodic and frequent safety checks for high-risk heavy vehicles. I recall that in last week's SARTA newsletter there was photograph of a truck that had a temporary fix on the brakes: it was a pair of pliers. I used to know the terms of all the tools when I was an active tradie.

An honourable member: Multigrips.

Mr PISONI: Not multigrips, but the ones that actually lock shut. They have a name.

Members interjecting:

Mr PISONI: What are they?

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: Monkey grips.

Mr PISONI: Are they monkey grips? I do not think they use them in furniture.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: Multigrips.

Mr PISONI: Yes, I think it could be multigrips. I think they were multigrip pliers that held the wire in place to make sure that the brakes operated. It was an extremely dangerous and risky process. Steve Shearer's commentary in the newsletter was certainly more than colourful in describing the situation and the dangers of those efforts.

Compliance frameworks for inspections will also be more robust, with penalties for breaches of the code increasing from $5,000 to $10,000. To ensure the costs in regions are consistent with metropolitan costs, a cap will be set on private inspection station fees. Country inspections have proven to be difficult in the past. I have visited a number of operators outside the metropolitan area, and it obviously can take them quite some time in order to get an inspection if their truck has been defected or they have made some modifications to get it approved. So it is good to see that we have some changes there to make that an easier process for them because the trucks are not making any money while they are in the shed. They pay the bills when they are hauling goods across the country.

A pilot heavy vehicle inspection scheme began on 1 January this year that required all heavy vehicles older than three years, and with a gross vehicle or aggregated trailer mass of 4.5 tonnes, to be inspected on a change of ownership. As of May, 600 vehicles had been inspected, with a 50 per cent failure rate, which is quite concerning.

That is some background about what the bill does and also what the Liberal Party is offering in the medium to longer term to help make Adelaide an international city and help to grow the economy in South Australia. There is a huge opportunity for South Australia in the future in selling more of what we make interstate and overseas. The growing middle class that we see in China and other countries to our north loves the quality of Australian food product, and there is no doubt that South Australia is a net exporter of food. There are many more products that we can add more value to here in South Australia and sell to our neighbours in the north.

To give you some idea of the value of the Australian brand in China, I happened to be informed the other day of someone who was planning a trip to Shanghai Disneyland and who had a look at the menus that were available at the various cafes.

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan interjecting:

Mr PISONI: No, it was not the minister—his kids are a bit young. They probably would not remember that trip. Various items were on the menu, but the thing that stood out was that the burgers were made from Australian beef. The description was 'Australian beef', emphasising the fact that it was quality beef because it was Australian beef. That is something that, as a state, we are in a prime position to export. Getting our product to market as quickly and as effectively as possible is the key to having an edge and ensuring that those who are in the food business in South Australia can make a profit, employ more South Australians, grow their businesses and help to grow the South Australian economy.

Of course, we like them to pay tax. In the business of government here, we like to ensure that services and infrastructure are provided, and we know that a strong economy delivers that taxable income without the need to push taxes up because the more people we have participating in the economy the more people there are paying taxes, the faster the economy is growing and the more we see those taxes accumulate.

It is a win-win situation to get our infrastructure right in South Australia so we can get our products to market so we can grow one of our key areas that we are very good at in South Australia and that is niche products. I think it is fair to say that we have some terrific South Australian companies that punch well above their weight in Australia and beyond.

Of course, there was the news on the weekend about the $14 million sale of the cheese company that started off as a very small family business to an international business. It is great to see that happening in South Australia because we know that sets up a very strong future for jobs in that area. With those closing remarks, the opposition supports the bill and congratulates the minister on bringing it to the parliament.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: If the minister speaks, he closes debate. Sorry, the member for Chaffey is on his feet.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (20:26): I am on my feet, thank you Deputy Speaker. I would not want to spoil a good party, but I will make a short contribution.

The Hon. P. Caica: You probably will by doing that.

Mr WHETSTONE: Yes, I will, says the member for Colton. I am sure that once you have finished reading that paper, you might make a contribution as well.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Back to your contribution.

Mr WHETSTONE: I rise to speak to the Statutes Amendment (Vehicle Inspections and South Eastern Freeway Offences) Bill and note support from this side in relation to the bill. The measures in the bill are designed to target drivers and owners who may put road users at risk by not having heavy vehicles maintained to roadworthy standards. I am going to touch on roadworthiness, so I am going to touch on the standards of vehicles on our roads, and I am going to talk about the standards of our roads that are not only wrecking heavy vehicles but also putting people's safety in jeopardy at every turn.

Obviously, problems are generally caused by a small minority of drivers and truck operators with poorly maintained vehicles and bad driving habits, but, in saying that, it is not just about people behaving badly and vehicles not being in a satisfactorily roadworthy state. It is about what the conditions of the roads are doing to our vehicles and their impact. In some instances, there are some very roadworthy vehicles that are being smashed by unsatisfactorily maintained roads.

We have seen a number of incidents on roads. We have seen a number of incidents with inexperienced drivers on our highways and our freeways, but it is important to note that it is the climate of the situation. If we are talking about vehicles running away down the Mount Barker Road or South Eastern Freeway, we have to ask ourselves: how did this happen? Why is it happening? In the majority of cases, is it the fault of the driver, the fault of the vehicle or is it the fault of the design that we have become so accustomed to?

As I said, the bill amends the Road Traffic Act to create two specific offences for drivers of heavy vehicles on the section of the South Eastern Freeway descending into Adelaide, beginning between Crafers and the intersections of Cross, Portrush and Glen Osmond roads. I am sure every person in this chamber has seen the horrific carnage that has sadly happened with runaway trucks losing brakes and trucks losing drive, in other words, slipping into neutral or not being able to select gears. Runaway trucks, brakes overheating, inexperience, and the worst thing is when it is all of the above mixed into one package. Offence No. 1 in the bill, based on Australian Road Rule 108, is failing to descend the downward track in a low gear and offence No. 2 is exceeding a set speed limit by 10 km/h or more.

I want to touch on a few issues because the great electorate of Chaffey is surrounded by heavy vehicle movements. It is surrounded by the logistical chain and the ever-increasing number of trucks that are on federal highways, state roads, arterial roads and council roads, and it is about addressing the glaringly obvious. One of the main points in the bill relating to the Riverland and the Mallee is the fact that the Motor Vehicles Act 1959 and the Road Traffic Act 1961 will be amended to allow all heavy vehicles to be subject to periodic and frequent safety checks for high-risk heavy vehicles. Compliance frameworks for inspections will also be more robust, with penalties for breaches of the code from $5,000 to $10,000.

To ensure that costs in regions are consistent with metropolitan costs, a cap will be set on private inspection station fees. I know that some of the regional centres do have inspection stations and I know that in Renmark we have a state government inspection station. My beef with the state government inspection station is that it is open periodically; it is not open regularly. For the life of me I do not understand why we cannot look across the border into Victoria at what they are achieving there. There are accredited safety inspection stations, which are businesses that are open, in most cases, six days a week, 10 hours a day, which give operators, truck drivers and business owners, if they do have defect notices or they do need those inspections, the opportunity to do it with ease when they have to go to those points of inspection.

That is not happening in South Australia. For instance, in the Riverland if you want your truck inspected the station may only be open two, three or four days a week; there seems to be quite a variant. What it also means is that trucks are off the roads, operators are losing money and truck drivers are not earning a salary. We are losing that productivity gain. The productivity gain that I am concerned about and that every South Australian is concerned about is that when we are not achieving productivity gains we are not creating jobs, we are not adding to the state's economy and so we have loss of production. The logistical chain is broken, and particularly in the Riverland.

It is one of the regular complaints that I get from heavy vehicle operators, that we are at a disadvantage. That is why many truck operators in South Australia register their vehicles interstate; they do not register them in South Australia. When they are not registering their vehicles in South Australia, they are registering them in Victoria or Western Australia, so they are paying their registration fees into those other states. Where does the road funding go? It does not go to South Australia; it goes into the other states. That funding is there to bolster road funding, road maintenance and programs that enhance the logistical efficiencies that every transport operator is looking for.

A couple of weeks ago I sat down to dinner with a number of heavy vehicle operators and I asked them, 'As a South Australian business to operate in South Australia what would you need to register your trucks, your trailers and bring all of your business back to South Australia?' They said, 'Be competitive. Have our inspection stations open when everyone else's are open. When we go to register our trucks, be cost competitive.' I spoke to one operator who said it cost him almost $1 million a year more to run his operation in South Australia than it does in Victoria. Why do you think he is registering his trucks and has he got his operations over the border? It just beggars belief that we have not woken up to understanding what is going on.

The pilot heavy vehicle inspection scheme began on 1 January of this year. It required all heavy vehicles older than three years with a gross vehicle or aggregated trailer mass of 4½ tonnes to be inspected on a change of ownership. As of May, 600 vehicles had been inspected, with a 50 per cent failure rate. It just goes to show that the system here is not friendly when it comes to getting those vehicles back on the road.

You have to be honest; no heavy vehicle operator, truck operator or truck owner business wants their vehicles off the road. None of them wants their vehicles in an unroadworthy state. What they do want, however, is that when they fix them, when they invest the money back into that truck, that trailer, that logistical chain, they want their vehicles making money so that they can employ people, they can make money, buy more trucks and cart more freight. It makes the wheels go round. It actually helps the state's economy.

Over the years, many Riverland heavy vehicle businesses have raised concerns about the low number of open days of heavy vehicle inspection stations—that is one issue. Registration is another issue for many of these operators. As I have said, if the inspection station is not open today and it is not open tomorrow, then they have to drive to Adelaide. Again, productivity gains have ground to a halt. It really does beggar belief that we are looking to penalise or double penalise those operators that, yes, have unroadworthy vehicles or, yes, have to have inspections, but we need to know how to accommodate them. We need to get those trucks back on the road so that we can keep people employed and keep the wheels turning so that we can get our produce and all of our logistical exercises back into a productive operation.

We talked about registering heavy vehicles interstate and the inspections that are required. Will the inspection stations in the Riverland be open more often? It is the chicken and the egg: you either have to match it with the interstate counterparts or you have to move on. If you cannot be competitive, people will continue to register their trucks interstate, they will get their inspections interstate, and South Australia will continue to miss out.

I am not saying this with any malice, but I am saying it with common sense: why can we not compete with the other states? Registration in South Australia is more expensive than it is in other states. Everyone in South Australia is trying to make a dollar. Every trucking business is running such a fine line now because it is such a cutthroat industry, so they have to look for every opportunity to make that dollar.

Obviously, increased productivity—and I did make comment today; the minister was here listening and he stormed off—is about road maintenance, it is about how we are going to create productivity gain. It is about how we are going to make our roads safer and how we are going to stop allowing our roads to have dinner plate sized potholes. Look at the Ngarkat Highway. Look at the Browns Well Highway. Some of those roads are in very poor condition. Vehicles are slowing down to between 80 and 90 km/h because the roads are that bad. They are actually doing S-bends down the road, dodging potholes. This has been ongoing for a number of years, yet ignorance seems to be bliss and we just ignore something that is out of sight, out of mind.

We talk about putting B-doubles, B-triples and road trains onto our roads. Some people are against it, but what I would say is that it is a productivity gain. It is allowing fewer trucks to be on our roads and, in turn, it creates less congestion. We have to deal with the closure of the Mallee rail. We have to deal with the closure of the Riverland rail. That means that we have extra trucks on the road now. We have trucks that are travelling in different directions for different reasons. The logistical chain is adjusting to the closure of that road, but it is putting more trucks and more pressure on our roads and putting more pressure on the state of our roads, which are already crumbling.

I mentioned today in a grieve that we are seeing some upgrades to the Kingston turn-off on the Loxton via Moorook road. We have seen that the state government has done some works on those roads, namely, shoulder upgrades. That is great, but those shoulder upgrades are already crumbling. They have been there for no more than six weeks and they are already starting to fall to bits. So we have pressure on those shoulder upgrades, and we have pressure on already existing crumbling infrastructure. What are we going to do about it?

We seem to be diverting trucks off the main federal highway—the Sturt Highway—because we have roads and bridges that need repairs. As I understand it, the Kingston Bridge between Barmera and Waikerie is in need of repair. I am led to believe that there are reports that they have been putting concrete around these pylons for a number of years. So what are we doing: are we patching and bandaiding these pieces of infrastructure on our highways? What are we actually doing? I do not want to see a temporary bypass continue to be a permanent bypass off the Sturt Highway.

Today, I talked about the road maintenance backlog. It is reported that there is almost $1 billion of regional road maintenance backlog. The longer you leave it, the worse it is going to get and the more expensive it is going to be to repair. The more expensive it is going to be to repair, the less inclined governments are to spend that money, so they will take the easy solution and reduce speed limits. Reducing speed limits is not actually making our roads any safer; it is just a bandaid approach.

I would like to see the statistics on the number of casualties that have been on the Browns Well Highway and on the Ngarkat Highway. I have actually been to visit people who have been in accidents on those highways. Are they dodging animals? Yes. Have they run off the edge of the road? Are there big drop-offs? In some instances, we have 10 to 15-centimetre drop-offs from the road onto the shoulder. I recently visited a gentleman whose rear trailer dropped off: it swung around and pulled his truck off the road—he tipped the truck over. His medical condition is for the rest of his life. This happened for the simple reason that that road was not maintained.

Every country road user knows that the inside of the bends is where the most pressure is put on roads because cars run early into corners and wear the shoulders away. They create big drop-offs and it creates road safety issues. In this case, this truck driver bore the brunt of the result of that. I now want to touch on a couple of other issues.

We are seeing that heavy vehicles are being moved out of country towns. I will use Renmark as a great example. We have a number of truck operators who have been operating in and around Renmark. To the council's credit, they have helped these businesses get out of town and put them into an industry park that runs off the Sturt Highway to the Renmark Airport industrial site. There are three large transport companies in that precinct and there is also a citrus packing plant.

We are now seeing that we have a number of trucks—not just a small number but a large number, about 200 truck movements a day—pulling onto the Sturt Highway. The Sturt Highway is a very busy highway between Renmark and Berri, and it is proving the danger of trucks pulling out. In some instances, they are waiting between five and 10 minutes before they can pull out, so, of course, they are going to take risks to get out onto the highway. Why are we not looking at upgrading slip lanes and upgrading and amending what we currently have to make our roads safer and allow these trucks to get on and off the highway in a satisfactory way?

We have written a letter to DPTI. We wrote a letter to the minister; he responded 'Thank you, but we've got no money. We can't help you. You'll have to come back in a couple of years' time.' So what is going to happen in that couple of years' time? Does someone have to die before we actually get any action? Do we have to have serious accidents before we can actually have some money found in a pot or in the bottom drawer of a desk so that we can actually upgrade these roads? Do we have to actually upgrade our approach to the federal government so that we can actually get money?

It is up to the state government, however, to acknowledge that we have a system that is broken. The road network is in such poor condition now that it is almost that they have just said, 'Well, we're going to put a small amount of money into road maintenance, that's it.' My concern is we need some money spent on safety measures, not just road maintenance.

I turn to one of the old chestnuts—and I am sure the minister would know about the Wentworth-Renmark Road. It is an unsealed road. It is a busy road. Some heavy vehicles use it. It has got to the point now that it is a rubble road. In most points, we have actually lost the rubble; we are down to sand. It was one of the main connections between Broken Hill and heading to Adelaide. If you are coming down the Wentworth-Renmark Road, you come into the Riverland, you take Ral Ral Avenue onto the Sturt Highway and off you go. That road is in such poor condition now. When they built the Chowilla regulator SA Water used that road. They wrecked it even more than it is now. They have left. They have built the regulator, and they have gone, so the locals are now putting up with that road. It is just an absolute crime that is really happening.

In the 10 seconds that I have left I do want to just touch on the Liberals' initiative with the Globe Link proposal. It is a great initiative. It is a parallel transport network, road and rail. It is something that is going to be absolutely groundbreaking for transport and infrastructure upgrades.

Mr DULUK (Davenport) (20:46): I also rise to speak on the Statutes Amendment (Vehicle Inspections and South Eastern Freeway Offences) Bill 2017. As does everyone in this house, I welcome pragmatic measures to improve road safety. We are all too often faced with the tragic aftermath of road trauma for individuals, families, friends, first responders, emergency service personnel and the whole community. Anything we can do to reduce the number of accidents is certainly supported by those of us on this side of the house.

Those who read the papers know that 2017 has been a difficult year on our roads. In the first 10 months of the year, there have been 77 fatal crashes, the same number as there were for all of 2016, and road fatalities are almost on par. Let us hope that for the next 10 weeks of the year, in the lead-up to Christmas and as 2017 comes to an end, that we can all enjoy safety on the roads.

It is alarming and incredibly concerning that at a time when speed camera monitoring is at an all-time high the road toll is increasing. The evidence suggests that speed contributes to around 30 per cent of deaths on our roads. The former minister for road safety repeatedly stated that speed cameras are proven to be an effective method of reducing this road trauma. I am in no doubt that speed cameras do have a role to play, but $43 million was raised from speed cameras during the 2015-16 financial year, and I share the cynicism throughout the community that speed cameras are about revenue raising and not about road safety. That is why it was disappointing that the government opted to block the proposal for the member for Schubert's parliamentary committee, which he wanted to establish to monitor the use of speed cameras across South Australia.

I would, however, like to acknowledge the positive steps the minister has taken to finally bring bills to the house so that steps can be taken to improve the road environment and conditions of our state. As the minister noted in his second-reading speech, this bill has been informed by the work of the Deputy State Coroner's recommendations from the inquest into the death of Mr James William Venning. It would be remiss of me if I did not comment on the extreme delay in the government's response to those recommendations, and I think the member for Chaffey commented on the same.

The Deputy State Coroner delivered his findings in February 2014. That is 3½ ago that he delivered his recommendations and findings into the death of Mr Venning, and it is only today that we are debating and discussing those recommendations and those improvements for road safety on our roads. Really it just highlights where the government has been on not just this issue but on almost every other issue. It is late in responding to every inquiry, every proposal, every recommendation that every organisation has sent.

We are seeing it in this bill we are debating tonight. We saw it in the case of how the government treats people in its care, we saw it in the case of the Oakden fiasco, we saw it in the case of children in state care. This government sits on reports and is slow to act on the recommendations of key independent bodies in terms of what is best needed for South Australia because, deep down, this government has its own agenda, and its agenda does not always have the best interests of South Australians at heart.

It took the government 3½ years to finally introduce legislation responding to the key recommendations from the Deputy State Coroner in regard to the Venning investigation. That is a real concern to me: why has it taken so long for this government to finally come to the parliament with some recommendations in terms of amending legislation to improve road safety for so many South Australians?

During the 12 months to the end of June 2017, 117 people died on Australian roads from 103 crashes involving articulated trucks, and 79 died from 74 crashes involving heavy rigid trucks. Fatal crashes involving articulated trucks increased by 7.3 per cent compared with the corresponding period one year earlier. Fatal crashes involving heavy rigid trucks increased by 2.8 per cent compared with the corresponding period one year earlier as well.

When it comes to heavy vehicles on our roads we must place a premium on safety as the paramount concern. Whilst I welcome the measures introduced in this bill to improve road conditions for users, I believe we can do much more. We can move articulated trucks and heavy rigid trucks off our metropolitan roads and out of our suburbs. We can adopt the state Liberal team's Globe Link policy to remove freight trains from the Adelaide Hills and redirect freight trucks off our local roads.

I note that in the opening comments of the minister's second reading speech he felt it necessary to rule out a further bypass route. I was surprised that he felt it necessary to use the opportunity even to discuss the bypass, and I believe it is occupying a considerable amount of his and his department's time and attention. I can understand that he no doubt wishes his party had been the first to the ball to actually finally implement Globe Link, a much required policy supported by so many of my constituents, users of our heavy road vehicles, users of freight movement. South Australians, besides the monopoly players in the transport game, know that is a very important issue.

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan interjecting:

Mr DULUK: They can hear it, and they know it is the right thing to do as well, minister. You also know it is the right thing to do, and that is why your department was doing so much work on Globe Link and—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I draw the member for Davenport's attention to the fact that he should be speaking to me and not responding to interjections. I remind the minister that the member is entitled to be heard in silence.

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No.

An honourable member interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The night will grow longer if we are not on task.

Mr DULUK: Deputy Speaker, I apologise. I know that you know how important Globe Link is for the future of South Australia and the export jobs that will generate. I know that if you were a minister in this government you would see things differently at the moment, and I know that in your own patch with the Modbury Hospital you certainly have a different version to the government—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: What does that have to do with the bill?

Mr DULUK: Deputy Speaker, when Labor came into office 15 years ago—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr DULUK: —our state was contributing almost 7 per cent of the nation's exports—

Mr Whetstone: It was 7½.

Mr DULUK: Thank you, member for Chaffey; 7½ per cent. Today, our share is 4.6 per cent. If we had retained our 2002 share, South Australia would be exporting approximately $7 billion more a year. Exporters estimate that every $100,000 of export value is equivalent to one full-time job.

Right now, we have the highest youth unemployment in the nation, and for consecutive months, up until recent times, the highest unemployment in the nation. I would have thought this government would want to do everything to support export jobs and jobs for South Australians. On that basis, exports would be supporting an additional 70,000 jobs in our economy if South Australia had retained its 2002 share of the nation's export trade.

Beyond the economic benefits of Globe Link, there is the opportunity to significantly improve our road environment for all road users. Heavy freight vehicles have no place in our suburbs, and if we were to design a modern Adelaide today we would not be having a road infrastructure network that sees cars going down the South Eastern Freeway, down Portrush Road, affecting constituents like those I have here tonight, Teri and Benoit, who live on Portrush Road and who put up with the daily inconvenience of B-doubles going down their road. Of course, more importantly, we would not see the policy of a 30-year government plan to ultimately see B-doubles and heavy vehicles going down Cross Road, affecting my community through Mitcham and the Mitcham Hills.

The national land freight task is expected to grow by 86 per cent between 2011 and 2031, with much of that expected to be handled by road freight. The minister confirmed earlier this year that the state Labor government's long-term plan for freight movement in South Australia, as I said before, includes directing more heavy freight trucks along Cross Road. That means more heavy freight trucks on our metropolitan roads, more heavy freight trucks passing our schools, and more heavy freight trucks into our suburbs.

It is a shame the member for Ashford is not with us at the moment, but I wonder what Jayne Stinson, the Labor candidate for Badcoe, thinks about B-doubles going through her electorate. I know that the Liberal candidate for Badcoe, Lachlan Clyne, is dead against B-doubles going through his community. When he is out there doorknocking every weekend, together with the member for Unley, he talks about it to his community, and freight going down Cross Road is a real concern in his community, as it is in mine, as it is in the member for Elder's community. My constituents do not want to see Labor's long-term, 30-year vision for freight movement through metropolitan Adelaide.

The state Liberal team is committed to improving the lives of South Australians by delivering safer roads and better traffic conditions. Globe Link will develop a road freight carriageway running parallel to the new northern rail bypass. It will provide transport companies with unprecedented speed and efficiency in the movement of road freight in our state. It will provide freight trucks with unfettered access to and from Port Adelaide and the sorting yards north of the city, bypassing 36 traffic signals. The first light encountered after leaving Victoria would be in the heart of the Port, under a Liberal proposal.

Globe Link will connect the South Eastern Freeway with the Sturt Highway and the Northern Expressway as well as the proposed Northern Connector, enabling a 110 km/h link from Murray Bridge to Port Adelaide. Globe Link will increase productivity and reduce the costs associated with the transportation of road freight in South Australia and, importantly, it will keep large freight trucks off our suburban roads, making the commute for every South Australians more bearable. It will improve the quality of life for all South Australians.

Political persuasions should not affect judgement on delivering the best infrastructure and the safest roads in our state. Whilst I do support this bill, much more must be done to improve road conditions in our state. We need to see a better way. We need to see a different alternative from this tired old Labor government that lacks vision, energy and any urgency to deliver the changes that South Australia needs.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (20:57): I rise to speak to the Statutes Amendment (Vehicle Inspections and South Eastern Freeway Offences) Bill. The first thing I would like to mention is the fact that we pick on one major road. Yes, it is a road that I have driven down in its various guises before the new sections came through, with the tunnelling and the gradient that does not have a flat spot in it for that seven kilometres coming down from the South Eastern Freeway. In the old days, with Devil's Elbow, it flattened out around Eagle on the Hill. I would have come down that road many tens of thousands of times during my life.

I understand that we are trying to sort out the issues with trucks coming down the bottom of the hill, and some of those have been small six or eight-tonne trucks, and, yes, some have been B-doubles, and I will venture into a bit more of that in a moment. The thing that interests me is that we are making this legislation supposedly around one road.

Will that mean that the next thing we will have is a bill for trucks on Accommodation Hill at Truro? Does that mean that wherever we have a steep descent, we will have a separate piece of legislation? My understanding is that this will have an ongoing effect on the whole state in terms of the vehicle inspection scheme and also vehicles that are to be inspected upon their sale. I am a little bit intrigued about the title, and I am trying to understand what it is trying to fix.

This bill amends the Motor Vehicles Act 1959 and the Road Traffic Act 1961. It has been informed by the work of Deputy State Coroner Anthony Schapel, especially in regard to the death of Mr James William Venning, and I will speak more about that shortly. It has been developed in consultation with the South Australian Police, the South Australian Road Traffic Association, the Transport Workers Union and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator.

The measures in this bill are designed to target drivers and owners who may put road users at risk by not having heavy vehicles maintained to roadworthy standards. I note that, if you have vehicles on mass management, they are already under a strict regime. As to the B-doubles, again I think it is approximately three tonnes extra on their pay loads because they go into a heavy compliance scheme already as far as managing the cleanliness of their trucks, managing the fact that they do not have oil leaks, but also managing mechanicals all the way through.

On a weekday, the South Eastern Freeway carries on average 50,000 vehicles, with over 5,000 being trucks or buses. Living at Coomandook, many have come past me on the Melbourne-Adelaide run, which I believe is the fourth busiest highway in the country. It is the government's contention that, if the road is used responsibly by well-maintained heavy vehicles in the correct gear, the road is safe and there should be no problems. Problems, as identified by the industry, are generally caused by a small minority of drivers and truck operators who have poorly maintained vehicles and sometimes poor driving habits as well.

The bill amends the Road Traffic Act 1961 to create two specific offences for drivers of heavy vehicles on the section of the South Eastern Freeway descending into Adelaide, beginning between Crafters and the intersection of Cross, Portrush and Glen Osmond roads. Offence 1 is based on Australian Road Rule 108 of failing to descend the downward track in low gear, and offence 2 is exceeding the set speed limit by 10 km/h or more. Both these are punishable by an expiation fee of $992, six demerit points and escalating periods of licence disqualification/suspension: six months for a first offence, 12 months for a second and three months in addition for a third or subsequent offence. SAPOL will be able to issue an immediate loss of licence roadside.

In regard to safety camera/speed camera detected offences, the Motor Vehicles Act 1959 will be amended to enable the Registrar of Motor Vehicles to apply for a period of licence disqualification or suspension on expiation. Heavy vehicle owners who fail to nominate an offending driver will also be subject to these penalties. For second or subsequent offences, there is not a fine; instead, in addition to six demerit points, disqualification for no less than three years in addition to a maximum imprisonment of two years, so the penalties are substantial. Previous offences for speed or gears on the freeway will be used to determine penalties.

The penalty that a court may impose on a body corporate on conviction is a fine of no less than $25,000 up to $50,000. The fines for bodies corporate that choose not to nominate drivers have been substantially increased to comprise expiation fees, currently just $300 for other speeding offences and $25,000 for a speeding offence. This is to encourage bodies corporate to identify the drivers of speeding vehicles.

The Motor Vehicles Act 1959 and the Road Traffic Act 1961 will be amended to allow all heavy vehicles to be subject to periodic and frequent safety checks for high-risk heavy vehicles. I will talk about that because there would be a lot of heavy vehicles that do not even come down the South Eastern Freeway, yet this bill will impact trucks right across the state. I wonder whether any thought has been given to that. I am not saying that they should not be compliant, but I can tell you, as someone who has lived with the Dukes Highway dissecting their property for the whole of their life, I know that if they want to defect brand-new trucks being driven from Melbourne to Adelaide, they will. They will pull them in at Monteith near Murray Bridge, they will go over them and they will defect them—brand-new trucks.

The Hon. P. Caica interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: Well, you've got to wonder. Yes, it's a defect. You will get a chance if you want to speak. You just have to wonder what is going on there.

The Hon. P. Caica: I'm wondering what you're doing.

Mr PEDERICK: Well, you can speak in a minute. Compliance frameworks for inspections will also be more robust, with penalties for breaches of the code from $5,000 to $10,000. To ensure that the costs in the regions are consistent with metropolitan costs, a cap will be set on private inspection station fees. A pilot heavy vehicle inspection scheme began on 1 January this year, requiring all heavy vehicles older than three years and with a gross vehicle or aggregated trailer mass of 4½ tonnes or more (a pretty small truck) to be inspected on a change of ownership. As of May, 600 vehicles have been inspected, and it is noted that there was a 50 per cent failure rate.

There have been some high-profile accidents. There are 800,000 movements descending into Adelaide per year. SARTA and the TWU are both supportive of the more stringent controls in regard to penalties for offenders. In relation to this bill, I want to talk about part of the human side of why this bill came about. I note that smaller trucks have taken lives coming down to the intersection of Cross Road, Glen Osmond Road and Portrush Road, but I want to talk about James William Venning, a constituent from Pinnaroo.

Yes, the wrong thing happened while he was in control of a B-double and, allegedly, he hit the wall. I have seen the video footage from the Today Tonight shorts showing that he hit the wall at Glen Osmond doing 145 km/h. That killed him, a 42 year old from Pinnaroo, a great football club man. They have a sign on the edge of the oval at Pinnaroo acknowledging James William Venning, or Storky as he was known, for his contribution to the club both as a coach and a supporter. Yes, he did the wrong thing and he paid for it dearly, but he did not take anyone else out, which may have been a bit of luck.

I will make some comment about that. Counsel assisting the coroner, Rosie Thewlis, said that Mr Venning was travelling along the South Eastern Freeway when he turned left into Cross Road and the semitrailer (I believe it was a B-double) tipped on its side and hit the wall. He died from blunt head trauma, and no-one else was injured in the collision. He was travelling above the speed limit of 60 km/h as he travelled on the freeway below the Heysen Tunnels. I know that the inquest looked at whether the correct gear was selected and whether the truck suffered a brake malfunction.

Giving evidence, Brevet Sergeant Fred Bakker from SAPOL's Major Crash Investigation Unit said that Mr Venning held an appropriate truck licence but, as the sergeant said and as I know, Mr Venning usually drove via the Riverland on the route from Pinnaroo to Virginia, so he came around the top road, the Sturt Highway. The sergeant said that it seemed that Mr Venning had not done the run down the South Eastern Freeway before. On the day that James made the fatal trip, there were bushfires in Loxton, and it appeared that the company Mr Venning worked for erred on the side of caution in relation to road closures.

According to the police, a fellow truck driver on the freeway noticed smoke coming from the back of Mr Venning's truck as he left the Heysen Tunnels. Another witness described his truck as having the brake lights constantly on. As I said, there was a calculation that he was doing up to 145 km/h at the time he hit the wall at Glen Osmond. A speed camera at the Mount Osmond turn-off captured the truck driving at 104.6 km/h in the 60 km/h zone. He could have taken one of the arrester beds, but for some reason he did not. There is other commentary about other accidents that have happened down that length of the road.

I only brought a dozen loads down the old route when it went through Eagle on the Hill, back in 1992-93 bringing grain into Adelaide and, yes, you do have to select the right gear, absolutely. When you were in an old R-model Mack, it was fourth gear and you just took it gently down the hill. The old Macks had something called a dynatard; they did not have a jake brake. You would have been better off throwing your foot out the side and using that as a brake because the dynatard brake was basically useless. You did depend on your gears, and that is essentially what happened. If you did try to go down there even one gear higher, you ran the risk of losing your brakes and they would start smoking. I do understand about being in the right gear. From what I understand, the trucks now with the automatic gearbox, drivers can manage that for coming down the hill as well.

What this emphasises is our Globe Link policy. I know it has been discussed here earlier tonight with other members. We want to put a diversion from Monarto around the back of the Hills—perhaps come in around Two Wells and dodge all the hills, dodge all that risk—along with a railway line and a potential airport at Monarto in my electorate. It is a big plan, a big vision from this side of the house, and it could cost $9 billion or $10 billion over time, but at least it is forward thinking and not pushing everything—

The Hon. P. Caica: Which no-one agrees with.

Mr PEDERICK: You can speak in a minute, if you want. You will have 20 minutes if you want to have a go.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am going to protect the member for Hammond.

The Hon. P. Caica interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am going to protect the member for Hammond. Member for Colton, that means you are not allowed to speak.

Mr PEDERICK: Chuck him out. Thank you, Madam Independent Deputy Speaker. I always appreciate your protection; I am only a little guy. This will take freight off the road. I have talked to plenty of freight operators who want to divert around there. We need this vision, and not just for road freight. We need it to get rail freight out of the Hills. I note the minister today talked about supposedly hundreds of kilometres of road freight upgrades throughout the state. He needs to get out and look at what has happened to those Mallee roads where we have no grain freight on rail anymore because the rubble is coming through the bitumen.

We have road train access out there now, bringing grain in from Pinnaroo, and those roads are getting torn up, torn to pieces with the extra freight that could well and truly go on rail. That is a poor decision that is going to cost consecutive governments millions and millions of dollars over time into the future instead of getting that track at least up to a reasonable standard so that we can run trains out of the Mallee, and better than the 25 km/h that they used to run. They had to run at night because they could not even run in the heat in the end, because of the lack of maintenance, out to Pinnaroo and through to Karoonda and Loxton. Lots of money will be needed. It will run into hundreds of millions over time for these roads that have had trucks put back on them. We have had a good look at what can be done to get freight around Adelaide and coming to the north, by rail, road and air.

Finally, I want to talk about the inspection regime. I hope the minister addresses this in his speech because, as I said at the start of my contribution, this is about the South Eastern Freeway, but there will be plenty of trucks that operate to the north of the city and to the north of the state, even out to the east of the state and to the South-East, that will never come down the hill into Adelaide. I can understand that we want road safety, but this will be a blanket across all those trucks, and obviously there will be a lot of interstate registered trucks coming across, as they do, on one of the busiest freight routes in the country, between Melbourne and Adelaide. I acknowledge that for a nine-hour, one-way run, it is more efficient than rail for those distances.

While we are supporting this bill, I acknowledge that there will be some compliance costs that are going to have to be borne by industry and that will be passed on to consumers. There is absolutely no justification for seeing innocent people die at the bottom of the freeway, but there are a few cowboys in the industry who spoil it for everyone. They spoil it for everyone and what happens is that you have more legislation, more compliance and more regulation. Some of these trucks are just little trucks that cruise up to Mount Barker and back, and they might be six or eight-tonners or they might be septic pump trucks, or they might be concrete trucks.

We saw one the other day that had vice grips holding his brakes together, and that is not good enough. It is absolutely not good enough. People traverse that road. When I am in Adelaide I am always going through that intersection of Cross Road, Glen Osmond Road and Portrush Road. People should be able to know that they can go through that intersection in whatever lane and not be killed or injured.

I also note that most of the truck drivers—and when I say most, 99.9 per cent of them—do the right thing: they hang in the left lane until they get near the bottom and then they slowly want to edge out if they are heading up Portrush Road and they have to go across two lanes. It is also about education for car drivers coming into the city so that they can understand why the trucks have to pull out of the left-hand lane and get into the right-hand lane and why they want to go up Portrush Road—because that is the truck route at the moment. It causes some confusion and some angst.

That is another reason why, on our side of the house, we pursue the Globe Link policy to get freight out of the Hills. It will not get it all; some of it will go in direct, but we can divert one heck of a lot of freight around that intersection and away from that long seven-kilometre slope and keep some more people alive.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (21:17): I thank those members who have risen to speak on this important bill. It has been interesting for me, as the one who has brought this bill to the house, to listen to some of the contributions that have been made, particularly this evening, from those opposite about the bill. I have to say that, at least for the first 13 minutes of it, I was quite glad and quite moved that the member Hammond was the first and, so far, the only one to jump straight to the heart of the purpose of this bill. That is, of course, the horrendous accident and fatality that was caused to a member of the regional community, Mr Venning.

That fatal incident was the subject of a Coroner’s inquiry into the circumstances of that accident. We heard from the member for Hammond in some detail something that we need to pause and reflect upon and remember every time there is an accident on our roads, particularly a casualty crash or one which causes a fatality, and that is what the real cost of these incidents can be. It can be an impact on an individual, an impact on a family, an impact on broader loved ones and particularly for those people who come from regional communities, the impact on a regional community.

This accident happened at a time when we seemed to have a spate of serious accidents on this part of the South Eastern Freeway. Certainly, since this particular accident the government was very quick to improve conditions on the road itself, as well as make sure that we kept a close ear for any recommendations that the Coroner might have made so that we could further improve safety on the South Eastern Freeway, particularly for heavy vehicles and, importantly, also for those people sharing the South Eastern Freeway with those heavy vehicles.

Those measures undertaken by the government are referred to in the Coroner's report, making further recommendations for the government to follow up. At best, I am bemused; at worst, I am extremely disappointed by some of the petty and unnecessary politicking by some of those speakers opposite attempting to reflect poorly on South Australian police, on people who work for the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure, let alone members of the government who worked assiduously and swiftly to make sure that we took those measures necessary to reduce the risk of these sorts of incidents recurring on this particular road.

It is an important piece of road. It carries a relatively high volume of traffic, both light vehicles and also heavy vehicles. It is a critical freight route and we know it is a critical freight route if for no other reason than it was recognition of its role as a freight route that attracted the significant amount of money—hundreds of millions of dollars—from the then federal Keating government to build the Heysen Tunnels, to straighten out that section of road which included such features that we have always been familiar with, like Devil's Elbow, like Eagle on the Hill, to provide a better road surface and to reduce the risk of both light and heavy vehicles coming to grief traversing this descent.

It is important that it attracted those funds because it is an important freight route, not because it is the only route through but because it is the most direct route through to market for the vast majority of heavy vehicles. It was then and it continues to be now. It is flabbergasting, really, that the opposition continues to pretend that the vast majority of heavy vehicle volumes do not need to use the South Eastern Freeway, that they do not need to access greater metropolitan Adelaide, whether it is the southern suburbs, the CBD or inner suburbs, or the northern suburbs. We know, from traffic data collected by the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure, that on average more than 80 per cent of heavy vehicles using that descent down the South Eastern Freeway have business picking up or dropping off in metropolitan Adelaide.

They can come up with their ill-conceived, pie in the sky attempts to sandbag safe Liberal seats against the threat of Nick Xenophon, embodied in the policy of Globe Link, all they want, but it will not change the freight task for greater metropolitan Adelaide. I will speak about Globe Link in some detail in a few moments and, moreover, speak more directly about how, after nearly 16 years and after election after election after election, we have a Liberal Party that refuses to put up a transport policy to the electorate, let alone commitments about improving transport networks or infrastructure in their local electorates or in South Australia, that is suddenly, with the threat of a third independent political party breathing down the necks of a coterie of hitherto safe Liberal seats, goaded into action.

Not only are they goaded into action but they think, 'I wonder what project we could come up with which might provide some false dawn of hope to those long-suffering constituents who put up with MPs who refuse to work their electorates, to listen to their communities, to act in their best interests,' and are surprised that those constituents think, 'There must be a better way. We probably won't get a Labor member elected in these safe Liberal electorates, but we should look somewhere else.' They think, 'Well, let's vote for that third force. Let's vote for somebody like Nick Xenophon.'

When they are faced with that threat they think, 'Let's ignore all the contemporary evidence which has ever been produced by transport consultants on this particular matter. Let's ignore the detailed GHD study which was commissioned by the federal government in 2010,' which said that a freight bypass is not economically viable, that it did not justify the investment that would be required to deliver it and that it had a negative cost benefit ratio, which in effect means that whatever dollars you spend on it are net detractors from the state's economy.

Extraordinarily, this particular investment promised by the Liberal Party would actually dampen economic growth in South Australia rather than boost it. What an alarming and appalling attempt at public policy development by the Liberal Party. You can see why they do not do it very often—because when they dip their toe in the water they get themselves so dreadfully burnt.

Before I come back to the ins and outs of their failure on transport policy, I want to address some of the comments that have been made, first of all, by the member for Bragg. The member for Bragg holds herself, of course, as the voice of the opposition in this chamber or, if not the opposition, at least the voice of herself. It brings her great pleasure to hear her voice drone on ad nauseam in this chamber without adding much to the proceedings of this place. She deeply regrets that the government would not proceed with a third arrester bed.

This matter was thoroughly investigated by the government. The findings of those investigations were made public and available for all to see. Despite all the effort that could be put to this task to establish whether a third arrester bed was possible and where it could be located, we established that it could not be within the current road design or, if one were to be provided, we would essentially have to move half a mountain, demolish the Mira Monte housing development and try to place one there. As the deputy leader, the member for Bragg, said, she has been proud to represent that downward track of the South Eastern Freeway for nearly all her time in parliament. I cannot imagine that that would be acceptable to her or that it would be acceptable to those constituents. So let's put that first furphy from the deputy leader to bed.

Secondly, she says that in Western Australia trucks must stop before they begin descending an equivalent type descent into the metropolitan area in Perth and because they do it so should we. This matter, of course, was investigated as well, and the problem we have with the descent is that if you stopped all trucks—bearing in mind that we have many thousands of movements of heavy vehicles per week, both trucks and buses—to pull them over, even into the left-hand most lane of what is, just after Crafers heading towards Adelaide, a three-lane road, you would cause traffic congestion in the peak times that would serve to bank traffic up back to Bridgewater. I cannot imagine that that would be acceptable to those constituents in the seats that are soon to be represented by members of the Nick Xenophon team.

She also said that she was disappointed that Portrush Road was still a designated freight route. How remarkable that she should make such a comment knowing full well that under the Globe Link plan, and knowing full well that more than four out of five trucks will still need to enter the metropolitan area, will still need to make use of the designated freight route of Portrush Road, that she should say that Portrush Road should not accommodate them. I wonder how the deputy leader and the member for Davenport reconcile their conflicting positions about not wanting trucks on Portrush Road to service metropolitan Adelaide, yet the member for Davenport says that we do not want trucks on Cross Road servicing the metropolitan area of Adelaide.

Where are these trucks meant to go? It seems the poor member for Unley is going to have to suffer that burden. They are all going to head down Glen Osmond Road instead. I cannot imagine that the member for Unley is going to be too chuffed about that, nor will his constituents be and nor will businesses be, particularly those that rely on either public transport services to pick up and drop off along the length of Glen Osmond Road or those businesses particularly in the Adelaide half of Glen Osmond Road that require kerbside parking, at least in their view, to support their businesses.

Of course, the deputy leader has always had strange views about Portrush Road. She tried to campaign against me and the government for wanting to install cyclist protection measures on Portrush Road in 2014. She made the extraordinary claims that installing bike lanes to try to provide safe space for cyclists on Portrush Road would be to their detriment. She tried to claim that providing those sorts of facilities would only encourage cyclists to use Portrush Road, rather than divert them to other roads. Which other roads, we are not sure because, as usual with the opposition, when it comes to a position on transport, the position is not particularly well thought through.

She also alleges that she has been told by her close friend, Rod Hook, that there is developed work for the grade separation of the Cross Road/Glen Osmond Road/Portrush Road intersection. Indeed, I assume that if the claim were true—which of course, it is not—the opposition would be in a position to commit to it at an election and, of course, like so many other areas of transport policy we do not hear a commitment from the opposition about a grade separation of this particular intersection, and I wonder what the impacts of that would be. Which would go? Would it be the residential development at Mira Monte? Would it be, perhaps, the Catholic landholding a little further around the corner on Cross Road? Would it be the residence on the other side of that intersection? Would it, indeed, be the petrol station?

Of course, none of those concerns or considerations has been entered into, and perhaps it is for those reasons—the sheer lack of thought that has been put into this by the opposition, or perhaps because transport policy is just a bit hard for them—that we have not heard anything further from them. If, indeed, she did believe that there were well-developed plans into such an intersection treatment, I am stunned that the member for Unley has not taken the opportunity to FOI them. Lord knows, there are a few things that the member for Unley has not FOI'd, and I am surprised to hear that this is not amongst them.

Lastly, the member for Bragg complained about the onerous costs of obtaining a heavy vehicle licence and suggested that perhaps life would be easier for South Australians if we did not have to go through the rigmarole of getting a truck licence, if we did not have to pay those costs necessary to get a truck licence. Is she honestly suggesting that those people who are put in charge of heavy vehicles of more than 4.5 tonnes should not be adequately trained to handle them, should not be made aware of their obligations under the law above and beyond what they are for the rest of us who are licensed to drive light vehicles, or should not be made aware of, for example, the obligations and requirement pertaining to places such as the South Eastern Freeway—some of which were not followed in some of those horrendous accidents on the South Eastern Freeway—such as Australian Road Rule 108, the requirement to keep in a low gear?

In the opposition's haste to make petty political points about this bill not only do they embarrass themselves but I think they shake the confidence of the South Australian community and the trucking industry in terms of being a credible alternative, if they should happen to fall into government, when it comes to the interests of the heavy vehicle industry and the safety of the South Australian community.

Of course, after the deputy leader concluded her comments we did have the member for Unley who I must say, to be fair, similar to the member for Hammond, really did make an attempt to grasp the heart of this bill, and that is making sure that we do reform laws to send the right message as well as, where necessary and where proven, the right punishments to those members of the heavy vehicle industry who do not do the right thing in traversing the South Eastern Freeway. But after he did that, of course, he was first to start attempting to enlighten us about the merits of their doomed plan, which we now hear from the member for Hammond will cost $10 billion—that is $10,000 million—in an effort to sandbag three safe Liberal seats in the Adelaide Hills from Nick Xenophon.

The $10 billion plan will provide such benefits as—and I quote the member for Unley—the ability to extend trains from 1,500 metres to 1,800 metres. Well, it might come as some news to the member for Unley in his pursuit of greater productivity on the rail freight network that, after that GHD report was released, which identified a prohibitive cost to provide a rail freight bypass around metropolitan Adelaide, the then federal government, under the stewardship of what most Australians would regard as perhaps the best transport minister this country has seen in the last generation, Anthony Albanese, provided a joint funding proposal of $440 million to grade separate the passenger rail movements from freight rail movements at both the Goodwood junction, southern end of the city, and the Torrens junction, northern end of the city.

The Goodwood junction works were undertaken from 2010 and successfully delivered in 2013, and indeed the Torrens junction works are in their final weeks at the moment. It is those works, based on the GHD study of 2010, that enable freight trains servicing South Australia to be increased from 1,500 metres to 1,800 metres and not the inclusion of 11 passing loops, as referred to by the member for Unley. The evidence base for how to improve freight movements across metropolitan Adelaide was established in that GHD report.

The federal government and the state Labor government acted on that report. They invested nearly half a billion dollars into improving freight productivity on that line, futureproofing it for increases in rail freight into the years to come, ensuring that not only could we run 1,800-metre long trains into Adelaide from Melbourne and out again to Perth and vice versa but that, in doing so, by grade separating the freight line from the passenger line, those freight trains would no longer need to give way to those passenger train movements. That would mean that at junctions, like at Goodwood and also at Torrens and particularly, as the member for Unley mentioned, with the Torrens Road level crossing, those freight trains will not be slowing down and holding up vehicle traffic for five to six minutes.

They will be moving through much more quickly and delivering productivity to boot and that really is a good example of how somebody should address infrastructure and transport policy initiatives: establish an evidence base, examine the options for improvements, work out what the costs are and, when funding is available, fund them, and that is exactly what has happened here.

This false hope, or, as Paul Armanas from the Leader of the Opposition's office would say, this cruel hoax that is being visited on the public of South Australia, particularly those members living in the Adelaide Hills, that the Liberal Opposition is going to spend $10,000 million, according to the member for Hammond, on establishing a freight rail bypass around the Adelaide Hills quite simply will never happen. It will never happen.

We know that the freight rail bypass does not stack up, and we certainly know from all airport operators across Australia who have taken the time to comment on this that the airport does not stack up either. There is the assertion from the Leader of the Opposition that it works at the Toowoomba Airport, which is a privately operated airport that runs freight only. What did the owner and operator of the Toowoomba Airport say? 'We run passenger services. We rely on passenger services in order to make the freight services stack up.'

The fact that not even a Google search was done within the Liberal Party to try to establish what the facts were in this case is appalling and a disturbing insight into how they might approach policy development should they ever occupy the Treasury benches. More troublingly, we had to listen to 20 minutes of diatribe from the member for Chaffey. It is a burden that all 46 of us must bear, but it is not solely a burden. I recognise that in this parliament it is important to have people like the member for Chaffey. They reflect so well on the rest of us and make us look so much better, particularly when we listen to contributions like his.

Not only did he sit through question time today when I answered a question talking about regional road funding, outlining what the commitment to regional road funding is from the state Labor government, how it has increased, why it has increased and the roads it has been spending on but he immediately stands up during the grievance debate afterwards and says, 'I wonder what the state Labor government is doing on regional road funding? If only they would spend more money on regional road funding.'

Extraordinarily, he continued to make the case that he makes on his own in the Liberal Party to reduce the ability for higher productivity vehicles to operate on regional roads. How extraordinary for a regional member of the Liberal Party to make the case against B-doubles, against road trains, against high productivity vehicles; to consign farmers and livestock operators in his electorate to having to use smaller trucks and to place the burden on regional communities that he purports to represent of having a high number of truck movements across regional roads. It is just extraordinary.

But, then again, this is the same member for Chaffey who spoke proudly of his position on the state budget, voting against the state bank tax without realising the number of branches that have been closed in the last 24 months by the big four banks in his own electorate. It was news to him. Apparently he does not walk down the main streets of the towns within his own electorate. Apparently he has not noticed the vacant shops and the vacant holes in the walls where those banking facilities are no longer provided by the big four.

The member for Chaffey's approach to constituent representation is to maybe rock up once every two weeks to a party room meeting, see what everyone else is saying, walk into the chamber, say those sorts of things and ignore the impact on your own electorate. What a dreadful model of public representation he purports to deliver. He also made the spurious claims that people are registering their trucks interstate, not because of costs but because of the other arrangements by which we regulate vehicles. Well, yes, it is true that South Australia and most of the other states around Australia have signed up to the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator and to the model of national heavy vehicle regulation.

A couple of states have not. In fact, I should say a territory has not, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia has not. They do that for their own reasons. They are concerned, of course, that most of their freight task is conducted across vast distances and they are concerned about some of the improvements to regulation which the rest of the nation has made in an effort to not just improve productivity but to improve safety.

Things like making sure the rollout of electronic work diaries occurs so that we can better monitor the amount of driving that a particular driver does within 24 hours are really important. It is really important to make sure that we do not have overtired truck drivers steering what can be up to 52.5 tonnes of heavy vehicle down what sometimes can be only six to seven metres of road width, amongst light vehicles and amongst regional communities. It is desperately important that we keep those communities safe and that we continue lifting the bar to make sure that we are taking those measures to reduce the risk of heavy vehicle accidents on our roads.

While many people like to say that there have been hundreds of accidents across Australia involving heavy vehicles that have caused casualties or fatalities, it is important to remember that, although it is not the majority in number, there are a number that have been caused by heavy vehicles. Often, heavy vehicle drivers are subject to those same failings that we see for light-vehicle drivers—the rest of us—whether it is inattention, whether it is drowsiness. Making sure that truck operators are registered in a state that has signed up to national heavy vehicle regulation will ensure that we can continue reducing the risk of these accidents occurring.

I have to say the contribution that I thought was perhaps the most disappointing was the one from the member for Davenport. He did bring an audience into this chamber. Unlike the member for Schubert, he did not button his jacket, so we know that he was not being filmed by the leader's office, but he did try to put it on. We know when he puts it on because his voice rises in volume and assumes a timbre which is akin to the federal member for Sturt's. In fact, the two to the ear are almost indecipherable when they raise their voices—the member for Davenport and the federal member for Sturt. If you closed your eyes, it would be like hearing Christopher Pyne here in this chamber.

Mr PEDERICK: Point of order: I do not think we need to have all this reflection on state members and federal members.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Probably not. I am going to listen to the minister as he wraps up.

Mr PEDERICK: He might get back to road transport.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. Minister.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. If it would please the member for Hammond, perhaps I can redirect my comments back to the substance of their contributions, such as their doomed to failure Liberal policy of Globe Link. It was a shame that the member for Davenport, in attempting to impress his dinner guests, spent the vast majority of his time attempting to prop up the campaign of the mayor of Unley, Lachlan Clyne, who is contesting one of the state seats. If we want to talk about whether things are on topic and whether members are addressing the substance of the bill, I am not quite sure what the fortunes or misfortunes of the Mayor of Unley have to do with the benefit of the public and for Hansard.

But the contribution from the member for Davenport included that chestnut that he does not believe that trucks servicing metropolitan Adelaide should use Cross Road. I draw members' attention back to the fact that only moments earlier the member for Bragg said that she did not believe that heavy vehicles should be using the designated freight route of Portrush Road. Where does that leave the South Australian Liberal Party? Again, we are back to Glen Osmond Road, are we not?

I know that in grasping at straws to try to make his case for investment in Globe Link—the $10,000 million policy, as the member for Hammond said earlier; the $10 billion that the Liberal Party is committing to this and diverting away from South Road upgrades—it is important for the member for Davenport. Not only has he been usurped by the member for Waite, not only has he been found sleeping at the wheel as the member for Waite successfully campaigned for and achieved $3.5 million for the upgrade of the Blackwood roundabout, but he is desperate to try to mislead his constituents into thinking that this policy will be to delivered by the Liberal government. Of course, it will not be.

On no assessment will this be found to be a good investment. On no assessment will this be found to deliver freight productivity benefits that would justify the cost of delivering them. On no assessment will the airport stack up, and on no assessment will the heavy vehicle movements demonstrate that metropolitan Adelaide and the goods that it requires to be delivered to it or taken from it can survive by having that freight volume around.

Of course, those regional members should know that a gazetted B-double heavy vehicle bypass has long existed around metropolitan Adelaide. A diversion from Tailem Bend via Mannum across to the Sturt Highway provides exactly the same bypass opportunity already at no further cost and at benefit, if they believe it to exist, that they tried to deliver for Globe Link. The fact that they do not even know the roads in their own electorates and what vehicles can use them is gobsmacking.

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Of course, the member for Hammond interjects with a comment about ferries. Which political party committed to replacing all the timber-hulled ferries?

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, member for Hammond!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Which political party was the one that committed to replacing the last of the timber-hulled ferries with steel ferries? It was not the Liberal Party. It was not the conservative MPs who represent regional electorates. I did. This party did. It is the Labor Party that consistently looks after the regions.

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Hammond is called to order.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Shockingly, it seems as if this Liberal Party thinks that South Australia finishes at Gepps Cross, which I find absolutely stunning. They forget their roots.

Mr PEDERICK: Point of order: I think I have heard enough.

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: Which standing order?

Mr PEDERICK: Debate, 98. The minister is not responsible for Liberal policy. If he is so ingrained with it, let him get on board with us.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Minister.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I am stunned to hear that during the debate of legislation I should not be afforded the opportunity to debate legislation. That is incredible. I thought we had a parliamentary democracy which provided the opportunity for debate, but apparently the member for Hammond does not understand why he is here.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Could we move on?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Yes, I am happy to move on. Across all the contributions from those opposite, there was the assertion that the government had not moved to improve safety on the South Eastern Freeway after these fatal accidents, particularly those that occurred in the lead-up to and including 2014. For the benefit of those members opposite, I might just run through those measures that the government undertook to improve road safety on the South Eastern Freeway.

First, restrictions were placed on heavy vehicles and buses on the freeway descent from Crafers. The speed limits for heavy vehicles and buses were cut to 60 km/h, and they were restricted to the left lane only from Crafers to near the Measdays Bridge, where, of course, many of the heavy vehicles need to divert into right-hand lanes in order to turn right. An education campaign was undertaken to ensure that heavy vehicle drivers knew the requirement to use a low gear on the descent, rather than using the primary brake. The campaign included posting brochures regarding Australian Road Rule 108 to all South Australian heavy vehicle licence holders, truck and bus owners, freight companies and industry representatives.

Information on Australian Road Rule 108, which provides for that requirement, as I said, also appears on the website at mylicence.sa.gov.au. In addition, 170,000 information brochures on the requirement to use the low gear were sent throughout the country to all heavy vehicle licence holders and registered heavy vehicle owners, truck driver associations and road authorities. Since late August 2015, the Heavy Vehicle Driver's Handbook has been available online to download for free. Ring-bound copies were also made available at Service SA centres. The first 5,000 copies were free, with some being made available to heavy vehicle training providers as part of their heavy vehicle licence training package.

The government has also taken active steps to promote the use of the two downward track safety ramps. Indeed, part of the concern from the heavy vehicle industry, as well as from driver representatives from the Transport Workers Union, was that drivers who were encountering the South Eastern Freeway descent for the first time may not be familiar with the term 'arrester beds'. While it may seem a small measure to most people in here, changing the name from 'arrester bed' to 'safety ramp' was deemed to make it much clearer to drivers, as they were heading down the descent, what opportunities there were for them to divert from the descent to keep their truck away from the rest of vehicle traffic if they found themselves in some form of trouble.

A 10-minute safety information and training video was developed in conjunction with industry, educators and SA Ambulance to demonstrate how to safely descend the South Eastern Freeway in accordance with Australian Road Rule 108. The video can still be viewed on YouTube and accessed from the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure website. It raises awareness of the locations and benefits of using safety ramps. Of course, there was some media coverage at the time about whether people were avoiding using safety ramps, even if they thought they were in a situation where their truck was running out of control.

There was a concern from some driver representatives that perhaps some truck operators would not look too kindly on those drivers who ran a heavy vehicle into a safety ramp, basically bogging that heavy vehicle in the deep bed of gravel and causing some great expense to have it extracted by a heavy vehicle tow truck or similar. So one of the other measures the government introduced was to agree up-front—and publicised this very widely—to meet the cost of extracting heavy vehicles from safety ramps, should they be used.

Sitting extended beyond 22:00 on motion of Hon. S.C. Mullighan.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Some of the other measures we progressed after these accidents included reviewing the driver training for heavy vehicle licence holders, which I know the member for Bragg said was unnecessary and unduly burdensome on those people who wanted to move machinery around the state but which we think is important to make sure that people are appropriately trained.

Of course, that leads to this bill. This bill is the latest initiative giving effect to the South Australian government's response to the recommendations made by Deputy State Coroner Schapel on 12 January 2015 following the fatal accident in January 2014. These offences and penalties are consistent with the spirit of the Deputy State Coroner's recommendations made on that date in January 2015 and with the in-principle support provided by the state government in its responses to the Deputy State Coroner's recommendations, which were tabled in parliament for all members of parliament to avail themselves of, firstly on 15 March 2015 and then an addendum on 23 September 2015. The bill has been specifically informed by three of the deputy coroner's recommendations from the inquest into the death of Mr James William Venning.

In response to recommendations 1 and 2, the bill amends the Road Traffic Act 1961 to create two specific offences for drivers of heavy vehicles on the section of the South Eastern Freeway descending into Adelaide between Crafers and the intersection across Portrush and Glen Osmond roads. The first, based on Australian Road Rule 108, is failing to descend the downward track in low gear. The second is exceeding the set speed limit by 10 km/h or more, which, as we discussed earlier, has been reduced by the government to 60 km/h for heavy vehicles and buses.

These offences will be punishable by an expiation fee of $992, six demerit points and escalating periods of licence disqualification or suspension: six months for a first offence, 12 months for a second and three years for a third or subsequent offence. The bill will empower South Australian police to issue an immediate loss of licence with an expiation notice roadside. For safety camera detected offences, the Motor Vehicles Act 1959 will be amended to enable the Registrar of Motor Vehicles to apply a period of licence disqualification or suspension on expiation. For the purposes of determining the appropriate period of disqualification or suspension following an expiation, all previous South Eastern Freeway offences, regardless of whether it was a low gear or speed offence, will be taken into account.

Heavy vehicle owners who fail to nominate an offending driver will also be subject to these penalties. This is perhaps one of the most critical elements of this bill—that is, making sure that there is a greatly increased corporate fee for those heavy vehicle operators who fail to nominate the offending driver. Should a driver or owner be convicted by a court of either of these offences, they face, for a first offence, a maximum fine of $5,000, six demerit points and licence disqualification for not less than 12 months. I am sure you would agree, Deputy Speaker, that the gravity of these penalties is far in excess and beyond what we would do for equivalent offences in relation to those in light vehicles or indeed in relation to those in heavy vehicles in other areas.

For a second and subsequent offence there is no fine. Instead, in addition to six demerit points, there is licence disqualification for no less than three years, in addition to a maximum penalty of two years of imprisonment. For the purpose of determining the appropriate penalty, a court will be able to count any previous convictions for a South Eastern Freeway offence regardless of whether it was a low gear or speed offence. The penalties that a court may impose on a body corporate on conviction is a fine of no less than $25,000 and up to $50,000. The penalty for bodies corporate that choose not to nominate drivers have also been substantially increased, to a sum comprising the expiation fee of $25,000 for a speeding offence on the South Eastern Freeway descent. The increase from the current penalty of $300 to $25,000 will increase the responsibility for a body corporate to identify the driver of a speeding vehicle.

The response to the deputy coroner's 14^th recommendation will be that all heavy vehicles be the subject of a periodic and frequent inspection regime. The bill amends the Motor Vehicles Act and the Road Traffic Act to ensure the prescribed classes of vehicles may be subject to an inspection. It is important at this point to discuss the inspection regime currently in operation, and which is being introduced here in South Australia.

The feedback we are getting from heavy vehicle drivers and truck operators is that those static heavy vehicle inspection stations are easily avoided by heavy vehicle operators. For decades now heavy vehicle drivers have communicated with one another by CB radio or similar, in cab, and when the inspection station was open the word would go out on the radio and there would be a temporary diversion of heavy vehicles around that inspection station, particular by those drivers who suspected their vehicles might be in an unroadworthy state.

Of course, that has led us to two things. The first is not putting all our resources into the basket of opening static inspection stations, which are well known by industry, but instead moving to random, risk-based inspection practices by both transport department officers and, in particular, by the SA Police heavy vehicle inspection division. The second, and as I alluded to here in this bill, is the establishment of a mandatory inspection regime for heavy vehicles.

This is something for which I was perhaps not expecting strong support from industry, but I have been pleasantly surprised by its response in supporting this wholeheartedly. They are very keen to make sure they chase down those operators in the industry who have unroadworthy vehicles, because those operators are giving the whole industry a bad name. Those operators are causing this government and national regulators to continually dial up the wick, to increase requirements and to increase penalties across the whole industry, even though it is only a small number of people who are doing the wrong thing.

The introduction of this mandatory inspection regime did start where we were being advised by the National Transport Commission that we had the greatest problem with unroadworthy trucks on South Australian roads. That was the rigid heavy vehicle fleet. That, of course, is gradually being extended to vehicles in different classes and in different risk categories.

I should say that agencies like the National Transport Commission and the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator did push back against this government's plan to introduce this mandatory inspection regime. They believed that policy development in this area should be left to them. The dreadful Cootes Transport incident—where a petrol tanker ran out of control causing a heavy vehicle collision in which, I think, five people died, some years before the accident which was the subject of the Coroner's inquiry in which these recommendations are based—caused New South Wales to act very quickly to pull all that transport company's vehicles off the road and to demand, at a national level amongst the forum of transport ministers, that we ensure we have inspection regimes which target vehicles as soon as practicable.

As much as it might be from a public policy development perspective perhaps more in keeping with the expectations of policy bodies like the NTC to wait for them to establish a risk-based inspection regime, the demands of the public in New South Wales and South Australia will not wait. That is why we have moved, similar to how New South Wales has moved, to introduce this mandatory inspection regime.

Mr DULUK: Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is there a special reason you are doing that?

Mr DULUK: I would like everyone to hear this wonderful contribution.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Obduracy, I think, is the answer you are looking for, Deputy Speaker.

Mr DULUK: I call your attention to the state of the house, Deputy Speaker.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have counted them. Ring the bells.

A quorum having been formed:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Minister.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Where was I? Perhaps I will start again.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Maybe not.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Maybe not? Okay. The bill provides for a more robust compliance framework for inspections by raising penalty levels for a breach of the code of practice from $5,000 to $10,000 and providing for additional offences. The amendment to the Road Traffic Act enables an authorised officer to give directions over the phone to a vehicle operator at a private inspection facility where an authorised officer may not be present if the vehicle presents a critical risk.

These provisions are grounded in hard evidence gathered from the pilot heavy vehicle inspection scheme that commenced on 1 January 2017, which requires heavy vehicles three years of age and older with a gross vehicle mass or aggregated trailer mass of 4.5 tonnes or more to be inspected upon change of ownership. As of May 2017—and I think the member for Hammond got this bit right—approximately 600 vehicles were inspected, evidencing a consistently high failure rate at an average of 50 per cent, a frightening statistic that this bill aims to remedy.

I feel like I have barely touched the sides of some of the matters that need to be addressed in bringing this bill before the house. Nonetheless, I submit myself to the entreaties of the member for Newland, and I am prepared to move that this bill now be read a second time.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (22:07): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.