SOUTH EAST ROAD SAFETY STRATEGY

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN (15:39): I rise today to speak about the South East Road Safety Strategy which the state government has adopted in partnership with the South East Local Government Association (SELGA). The South-East road safety strategy is the state's first in regional South Australia. For over a year the state government has worked with SELGA to develop the strategy and ensure that its goals best meet the needs of people in the South-East. As part of the development process, five public fora were held where members of the public, council, government agencies and private organisations could have input into the strategy. This strategy is based on four key elements: safer roads, safer users, safer speeds and safer vehicles.

The South-East road safety strategy is backed up by funding commitments from the state government to the South-East to improve the road network and increase safety, investing over $30 million in the road network in the South-East in the past three years, including $3.2 million on black spot programs, $4.7 million on shoulder sealing and over $6 million on road maintenance. We have invested in infrastructure works with three new overtaking lanes currently under construction on the Princes and Riddoch Highways. While I find it frustrating to go through those roadworks at very slow speed, they are great projects and I will be pleased to see them open soon.

The government has allocated in excess of $14 million in the 2007-08 financial year for the road network in the South-East. Projects include shoulder sealing, guard fencing, audio tactile line marking and maintenance. An amount of $70,000 has been provided over three years to SELGA for projects that support priority actions in the strategy, and $30,000 has been provided for a community arts project, which is a partnership between local government, Country Arts SA, community road safety groups, schools and interested community members. The project enables secondary school students to work with a professional artist to produce a series of short films that deal with their experience of trauma associated with the death and serious injury resulting from road crashes.

Very importantly, community engagement is at the forefront of the government's work in the South-East in this area. Two community road safety groups have recently been established at Robe and Kingston, and a road safety coordinating committee has been formed, with membership from each of the community road safety groups and the South-East Local Government Association.

School programs, in particular Safe Routes to School and Bike Ed, are being delivered in the Tatiara and the Naracoorte-Lucindale district council areas. Bike Ed is also being delivered to five schools in the Mount Gambier area. Road safety remains a priority for the government in the South-East area and investment in works and the roll-out of programs will continue as we strive to make our roads safer and reduce the number of crashes and their harmful effects in our community.

Members would be well aware of the terrible impact that road crashes have on country communities. It is something that affects everybody, particularly in the country, and it is important that we work in a bipartisan way to reduce the incidence of road trauma, including our road safety strategies. I commend and congratulate all who have put together the South-East road safety strategy, particularly representatives from the South-East Local Government Association and those involved in local government in the South-East. In particular I commend and extend thanks to the community road safety groups for the excellent work they do in the South-East in developing and implementing this strategy to try to reduce the incidence of serious road crashes.