Kim O’KEEFFE (Shepparton) (15:49): Today I rise to make a contribution on the Roads and Ports Legislation Amendment (Road Safety and Other Matters) Bill 2025. The bill that we are debating seeks to amend a number of acts related to the roads and road safety and ports and freight portfolios, including but not limited to the Road Safety Act 1986, the Road Management Act 2004, the Port Management Act 1995 and the Marine (Drug, Alcohol and Pollution Control) Act 1988. The bill seeks to deliver a range of legislative amendments to improve safety, achieve operational and administrative efficiencies and improve the effectiveness of transport laws.
Improving road safety is a critical issue in this state, as we know, and road safety must be a priority. We must be doing all that we can to address the alarming rise of our road toll and to make our roads safer. Whilst we are talking about road safety, there is no bigger issue than the neglect by this government of our roads. If anyone in this place has the time to come and see the roads across my electorate – and the former speaker, who I would welcome, mentioned that she would like to do that – I would encourage them to come and see the absolute disgraceful level of neglect. I have called on the Minister for Roads and Road Safety to also come out into the regions and to my electorate and to prioritise works on some of our most unsafe roads. But I know it is not just in my patch. Victoria has become the pothole state. The current state of our roads is appalling, and people are feeling unsafe on our roads. The government is simply not doing enough, and it is one of the biggest issues raised at my office.
Alarmingly, regional Victoria has had a 23 per cent increase in road fatalities. Eighty people have already been killed on regional roads so far this year. As we stand in this place, we all have a responsibility to do all that we can to make our roads safer and to prevent further fatalities. It is easy for those on the other side to criticise our concerns with the lack of road repairs happening across the state, but it is undeniable that our roads are a major safety issue. It has to be addressed, and road safety, as I said, must be a priority.
Recently I jumped in a truck with a local truck driver, Stuart Edgar, who wanted me to experience what he faces every single day in his workplace, trying to navigate the appalling and unsafe roads. It was like being on the Big Dipper; it was incredible. At one point my head almost hit the roof from the impact of a huge pothole. If you would like to see what that experience was like, you can see that footage on my Facebook. Stuart also pointed out the significant cost to the company, with ongoing damage caused to their vehicles. We have a huge transport industry, with 25 per cent of the state’s trucks registered in my electorate. Yet this government has failed to provide a road network upgrade to accommodate the significant transport movement.
We have a primitive road network across my electorate, and we have been calling for the Shepparton bypass for over 30 years. This is not only a matter of efficiency but also a matter of community safety. We have trucks belting through the main streets of Shepparton and Mooroopna. These are main CBD roads joined to retail shops and cafes. Yet the government spend billions on city-centric projects, neglecting the needs and safety of regional communities. Just recently the Herald Sun highlighted some of the roads in my region as the most appalling and unsafe in the state. Here is a quote from Grace from the Herald Sun:
At first, the potholes were small. Then we took a detour, and suddenly I was white-knuckling the grab handle, praying ankle-deep corrugations didn’t swallow our tyre.
Grace also said that other drivers pulled over and offered help while they were filming a torn-up road in Congupna, which is also in my electorate, thinking that they had done a tyre, because that is a regular occurrence. As a reminder, so many people are also damaging their cars, and in a cost-of-living crisis they are struggling to pay for repairs or blown-out tyres. I want to thank Grace from the Herald Sun for coming out into the regions and seeing firsthand the appalling, unsafe conditions of our roads and calling out the Labor government on their neglect.
Whilst we are talking about damage to vehicles, I was heading to an event recently at Tatura, which is 20 minutes from the centre of Shepparton, and I came across five vehicles parked on the side of the road. One after another they had hit a massive pothole and had either blown a tyre or damaged their car. The concern that was raised was that if a motorbike rider had hit that pothole, it would most likely have been a fatality. This is just one of the many roads, and many cars are impacted by the conditions of our roads.
Despite claiming record amounts spent on roads, the government’s own budget papers show a shocking 93 per cent reduction in road patching and a further 14 per cent cut in resealing and rehabilitation. This government is not doing more, it is doing less. We are seeing the direct impact of these cuts on our roads, and the government must ensure that the money is being spent on quality road repairs and road maintenance. On top of this, road maintenance works in rural and regional Victoria dropped 95 per cent, despite a maintenance backlog worth billions of dollars across the regional road network. Whilst the government continues to pour billions of dollars into city-centric projects and cost blowouts, our regional roads are decimated by potholes and crumbling before our eyes due to the lack of maintenance.
I will come back to the bill. As the member for Narracan alluded to, I also want to raise concerns in regard to the reforms to the consent for works, which are problematic. Essentially, the government is giving itself and councils more time to deal with work applications on and around our roads. Under the amendments in the bill, it can stop the clock on applications for works and remove deemed consent for some applications where consent is automatically granted after a period of time.
The government says this is about risk mitigation, ensuring safety and ensuring that potential infrastructure damage is avoided by following a clear and detailed process, and yet, on the other hand, it seems to be a legislative change to ease the pressure of the Department of Transport and Planning and in the process potentially add even more time and therefore cost to important works. These works may include roadworks, utility relocations and similar works that often involve property developments and housing. The risk is that this will only add further red tape to works involving roads where there are roadworks, utility activity or even private developments that require road access, like new intersections or the provision of gas or water and sewerage connections to new housing developments.
The Victorian Transport Association opposed this change, noting it could be used to delay roadworks, and discussions with planners and developers also indicated this is exactly the sort of bureaucratic red tape that builds delay and costs into developments, particularly around housing. The Urban Development Institute of Australia also opposed this provision, also noting the risks of introducing delays and inefficiencies into development delivery.
With the current housing crisis, we cannot have extra barriers or delays, so this is a genuine concern in this bill. We are already seeing such a lengthy delay in roadworks, and it is astounding to think that there could be even greater delays due to processes. As the member for South-West Coast alluded to in the lead contribution on the bill, the minister’s office and the department could not provide any examples of why this amendment is needed.
We also do have concerns with the amendment to part 5 of the Road Safety Act 1986 to allow for additional professionals to be prescribed as approved health professionals for the purposes of obtaining blood samples. As we already know, under this government our health system is already constrained and under pressure. This amendment to the act will only add more pressure to the already strained health workforce. There is also no detail in the bill as to where these health professionals are expected to come from.
The bill improves enforcement of road safety offences. Currently under the act it is an offence for a driver to fail to stop and render assistance after a traffic accident where someone is injured or property is damaged. Most of these offences are known as ‘hit-and-run offences’, which carry two categories of penalty. If someone is seriously injured or killed, the act of failing to stop and render assistance is an indictable offence carrying significant penalties, including up to 10 years imprisonment. The other category covers incidents that have resulted in minor injuries, which are summary offences and carry lesser penalties. Such offences also come with a 12-month period after the incident in which Victoria Police can commence proceedings. This limitation has been proven to be insufficient in some cases, as it takes time for Victoria Police to investigate and identify who was driving the vehicle at the time of the alleged offence. The bill amends a number of provisions and offences currently in the Road Safety Act 1986 to support their investigation and enforcement. The bill will amend the Road Safety Act 1986 to extend the time that Victoria Police have to bring a proceeding for this summary offence from 12 to 24 months to increase the likelihood that the alleged offender can be identified, located and prosecuted.
Another amendment related to non-sworn Victorian police staff having the ability to issue infringements relating to road offences specifically authorises Victoria Police employees to be able to issue infringements for those offences, freeing up sworn police officers for other duties. The Police Association Victoria has said that its preference is for the role to remain with sworn officers. As we saw, in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee budget estimates hearings the depth of the Victoria Police crisis under the watch of this government was brought to light even further, with over 1100 current vacancies, 700 officers on workers compensation, 300 senior officers expected to retire earlier and no additional funding for the Victoria Police Academy. This is a government that has no plan for addressing the ongoing police crisis that is having a direct impact on our communities across the state.
In finishing, with just 49 seconds to go, I think it is critical – and I think this bill is so important – that with any opportunity we get to make changes and adjustments to road safety we do that. But we also need to identify the current dangerous situation that many of our drivers are facing. As I said, the increase in road fatalities, particularly in regional Victoria, is alarming. We need to make sure that these roads do get fixed. We have got some dreadful roads in my electorate, as I have alluded to. They are dangerous. They are unsafe, and they are going to make us lose more lives within this state, so please make sure that we do more, because we have to do better.