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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-05-14 Daily Xml
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Road Safety

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (14:19): My question is to the Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services. With last week being National Road Safety Week, can the minister update the house on what response the government is taking to address driver behaviour?

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Lee was called to order, and now he is warned. Minister.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (14:19): I thank the member for Newland for the question and note that he is a very big advocate for road safety in his community. In fact, I know he has contacted my office a number of times around some issues in his community, and the member for Newland's engagement with SAPOL has proactively got policing out on Hancock Road, Bowen Road and Elizabeth Street in Tea Tree Gully and Milne Road in Ridgehaven. I thank him very much for that fine work that he is doing in his community. Those extra patrols have made sure that he is keeping his community safe, and he does an outstanding job with that.

Last week was National Road Safety Week right across the country. It is an annual initiative that was put together by the Safer Australian Roads and Highways Group (also known as SARAH). I was fortunate to meet the founder, Peter Frazer, back in March and have a wonderful sit-down chat with him. Sadly, he set up the SARAH Group after the tragic death of his daughter at 23 years of age—her name was also Sarah—back in 2012.

The SARAH Group's mission is very clear: it is to help reduce the number of preventable and foreseeable deaths and traumatic injuries on our roads. This year, the theme of National Road Safety Week was 'Drive so others survive'. I think that's a really great message and one we should all be pushing in this house. I have said it many times before in this place and I will say it again: one death on our roads is one death too many.

Mr Picton interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: With another life lost on our roads overnight, sympathies for people in car accidents are turning into frustrations with the number of times this is happening. People are asking the question, 'Why is the road toll growing as it is?' I have said before, too, that the term 'road toll' is one that I don't like to use—

Mr Picton interjecting:

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —because a toll indicates it's the price we have to pay, and it's not. There are a lot of things that people can do. I hear the member for Kaurna chuckling on the other side, and I think it's very disrespectful to a very, very serious—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my left!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —situation we are looking at.

Mr Picton interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Kaurna is warned. Minister, please do not provoke the opposition.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: In the past 12 months, approximately 1,200 people have died on Australian roads and thousands more have sustained serious injury. We know already that the road toll is moving up and up here in South Australia this year, and it is totally unacceptable. Interestingly, the number of serious injuries on our roads has been going down. It's an anomaly that we would love to get to the bottom of and, again, I think everyone in this place is in agreement on that.

We have been injecting more money into road safety advertising campaigns in the last nine months than in the time under the previous government. We have committed to working with stakeholders, as well as SAPOL and DPTI, to make sure that we do everything we can to reduce our road toll here in this state.

Mr Picton interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: A big thankyou to the Minister for Infrastructure, who secured more than $2 billion to improve our roads. We know they were neglected for many years by those opposite, especially in the regions.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: We are going to be doing everything we can to improve our roads.

Mr Odenwalder interjecting:

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

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: SAPOL, as well, are doing an outstanding job. In fact, they have initiated their own campaign through The Advertiser, the campaign around 'Enough is enough', and I think that is very much how we all feel.

We also had our speed camera review, and we had some great findings from that. You will notice bigger speed camera signs, bigger safety signs, are going up, putting up the speed limit and also pointing out where red-light cameras and speed cameras are to make sure that people are slowing down on our roads.

We are holding a forum tomorrow to have a meeting with some of the key stakeholders, again, to get everyone in the room talking about what we can do to reduce the road toll here in South Australia. It's something that everyone in this place should be working on, and the Marshall Liberal government is very focused on it.

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