Road Safety

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (14:37): My question is to the Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services. Can the minister inform the house how SAPOL and DPTI are working together to combat road trauma and fatalities on South Australian roads?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (14:38): I thank the member for Narungga for his question and acknowledge his interest in road safety. We know that road safety is a responsibility of all South Australians and I hope, on both sides of the chamber, it is of great interest to everyone who is here in this place.

Any injury or any death on our roads is one too many, and to see any tragedy in anyone's local community, as a member, is truly devastating. We know that road trauma does devastate individuals, families and, more broadly, communities as well. The ripple effect that it has through a community does go on forever really.

South Australia's police officers, unfortunately, and our emergency service workers and volunteers are so often at the front line of a lot of this trauma as well. It's probably an opportunity to take a moment and have a think about what they have to deal with and what they witness firsthand at any road accident. It really can be a devastating sight, and we want to do everything we can in this place to eliminate that and reduce our road toll.

I have said in this place before and publicly as well that 'road toll' is not a term that I like to use or hear because 'toll' indicates a price that we are willing to pay and, again, I think collectively in this house we know that we do not want to pay the price for people driving on our roads, be it a death or serious injury. That position of SAPOL and the front-line response that they have puts them in a great position to deliver our road safety messaging for the South Australian community, and that is the part they are playing now. They are taking over the advertising. Having that firsthand experience as well as the wealth of knowledge within their operation as far as communications is concerned, they will do that and do that well and deliver that for South Australians.

What we have also seen as we look at some of the stats is that 60 per cent of the fatalities this year have occurred on our regional roads, and too many of these fatalities have involved people from within that region when they travel on our country roads. I talk about the ripple effect but, for some reason in the regions, with everyone being so close and everyone knowing one another, whenever there is a tragedy—a death or a serious injury on our roads in the regions—it does really roll throughout that whole community and it has a great impact.

SAPOL are tackling this issue through enforcement as well, obviously, so here we can link the advertising campaigns with the enforcement that SAPOL do. They are very much out there with a visual presence on the roads, and doing these types of targeted campaigns and awareness campaigns are what they specialise in.

On the other side of the road safety landscape we have DPTI, and they are there making our roads safer for all South Australians. DPTI has the right mix of knowledge in this regard as well, as far as safe systems are concerned and putting in safer road infrastructure. We know that decisions on road designs are made through the analysis of data and crash history as well. As well as having that expertise, DPTI are also going to be looking after the sponsorships and partnerships to make sure we can drive that into the community as well.

So road safety is a collective: it is about the policing and also advertising campaigns; it is about the enforcement as well; it is about, from a DPTI perspective, making sure we have safer roads and safer systems; and it is also about pumping out those promotions and partnerships. Unfortunately, there is not a magic wand that can just fix the road safety scenario as it is. We know that it has been worse this year than we would have liked when it comes to deaths on our roads. Thankfully, serious injuries are down.

We will keep working on that through these departments, and they are delivering that road safety drive for us. I mentioned DPTI, and they have put in more than $1 billion to improve our regional roads across South Australia, which is the Marshall government again delivering for South Australians. I have no doubt that this positive relationship between SAPOL and DPTI will deliver us great outcomes right across the board.