Rural Road Speed Limits

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (14:19): My question is to the Minister for Regional Development. Does the Minister for Regional Development support the government's recent decision to reduce speed limits on eight country roads?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Mitchell!

Mr Wingard: That was funny, sir.

The SPEAKER: I will be the judge of that. It is not that I don't enjoy humour from the opposition, particularly German humour. The member for Mitchell is warned a second time. Minister.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister Assisting the Minister for Health, Minister Assisting the Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse) (14:20): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I am very happy to answer the question from the member for Flinders. Certainly of interest to his community, I know, are issues of road safety generally. This is something that the government has been looking at for a significant period of time. Road safety is a very important issue across South Australia. Over the past, I think it goes back even three years, the government has been looking at it in terms of speed limits across South Australia. There was a consideration of all the roads where there was a limit of 110 across South Australia.

There was a discussion held; there were a number of forums held across South Australia over the past few years in terms of looking at whether those should revert to the default speed limit of 100 km/h. What was decided by the previous minister was in regard to a very small number of roads, where the numbers of people driving on those roads were very low generally. I think there was one where it was higher, but also they weren't the key tourist or freight routes and also we had seen significant numbers of casualty crashes on those roads.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: We had seen some significant numbers of casualty crashes on the roads that were identified. In total across—

Mr Duluk interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Davenport is warned.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: In total, across the eight roads that were identified, I am advised that there have been 59 casualty crashes over the past five years, resulting in 84 casualties across those roads, so this is something that the government obviously takes very seriously. That is why a decision was made in regard to those eight roads, that I am told represent only 5.5 per cent of the 110 km/h roads in our regional road network, that it would be appropriate—

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey is called to order.

The Hon. P. Caica interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Colton is called to order.

The Hon. P. Caica interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Colton is warned.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: —for those roads to revert to the default speed limit of 100 km/h, based on both an analysis of those roads and the casualty crashes that occurred. Obviously, changing any speed limit is not necessarily a popular thing to do, but sometimes these things need to be done based on the evidence before the Minister for Road Safety in terms of doing the best that we can to protect the public.

I know that the opposition have said that they would increase all these speed limits. That is obviously a matter for them to take to the election in terms of what they would be proposing, but I think it is very important that we have a department and a Minister for Road Safety that look very seriously at the number of casualty crashes that we have had and take the proper evidence and looks at those criteria, based on the national criteria that we have in place, to ensure that the safety of the public is kept to the highest level possible.

Of course speed limits are only one factor that we consider in terms of the number of measures that we have in terms of improving our road network but also taking other measures to improve road safety and get the message out about road safety in our community, but it is one of those important measures we need to keep in mind and keep abreast of. Certainly the advice I have from the department and also the independent experts is that this was the appropriate decision to make, and hence it is not something that I will be looking to overturn—the decision that was made in regard to these eight roads.