2016-02-25
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — I am glad to be supporting the Transport Accident Amendment Bill 2015, a bill that reverses some but not all of the changes that the previous Liberal government brought in. In fact I think we opposed those changes at the time, so it is good that we are bringing some fairness back into this legislation, looking after the true victims of the terrible accidents that we still continue to suffer on our roads and recognising that that is not always just people who are involved in a physical accident but could be those who are traumatised by seeing it or being part of it. The more we come to understand this, the more we realise that the ripple effects of transport accidents in the community can be really quite dreadful and the more we should recommit ourselves to reducing the number of accidents on our roads.
The government has recently launched a new Transport Accident Commission (TAC) advertisement campaign based around the idea that we should accept zero deaths and serious injuries on our roads. This is a very important step that the government has taken, and I applaud it. I took last June a trip to the United States where I visited a number of cities and met with decision-makers, lobbyists and local activists who have been working towards a — —
[Speech was interrupted.]
Mr BARBER — And I live-tweeted it, Mr Davis, so if you want to know anything about what I did, it was already on the record as I went.
Cities all over the US and in fact all over the world are committing themselves to the idea of zero traffic accidents — that is, zero loss of life or serious injuries — and the measures that they need to achieve that are in fact quite revolutionary. In New York — not just the Lower Manhattan part but in fact the whole five boroughs, a city of 8 million people — they have now introduced the equivalent of a 40-kilometre-an-hour speed limit. To get one of those in Melbourne you have to fight a huge campaign. We have got a number of them in shopping centres and around schools during school operating hours, and they have already had a dramatic effect in terms of reducing injuries in those locations.
But transport experts, academics in the field, engineers and road safety bodies all understand that, having made great strides in relation to seatbelts, having made great strides in relation to drink driving, having addressed issues such as driver distraction — that is, using your mobile phone while driving — and having brought in a whole series of engineering treatments and a whole series of improvements to motor vehicles themselves from airbags to the rest of it, from here on in any major gains that are made in the urban setting in relation to the road toll will be based around a reduction in speed.
It is very interesting in fact that when you go to the Transport Accident Commission's website there is actually a splash page which shows a circle with a 30 inside it. There is no reference to what that means but I am presuming what it means is that in line with these other countries around the world, including, notably, the Nordic countries that kicked this initiative off, we are actually looking at reducing speeds from 40 kilometres an hour down to 30 kilometres an hour. I do not know that that has been publicly stated by the government, but it is there as an indicator on the website.
I also noticed the other day that on the back of seats on metropolitan trains there is a TAC awareness advertisement and it invites you to participate in a competition, at the end of which you might win a trip to Sweden. Now, Sweden is not generally no. 1 on everybody's list of destinations. Most people would probably be looking for a Jetstar or Tiger Airways flight to Bali or Koh Samui, but I am presuming what this competition is all about is that those who are interested in the question of road safety and who participate in the competition might get to travel to Sweden and learn a little bit more about how it has been continuing to reduce its speed limits and in the process has saved a lot of lives.
A minister in this house the other day mentioned that there was an interim target of 200 fatalities per year by 2020 — only shortly after the end of this particular term of Parliament — and given that fatalities have been around about the 250 mark, actually up a couple in the last 12-month period, I am presuming that there is a plan coming forward that is going to lead to a fairly steep decline in the number of fatalities, from around about this 250 mark down to the 200 as stated by the minister by 2020. Clearly speed reduction is going to have to be a big part of that. So that is just a bit of context to this overall question that we are dealing with here today, which is about the compensation for those affected by road accidents.
As Mr Rich-Phillips mentioned in his contribution earlier on this debate, the original idea of the Transport Accident Commission was for those directly impacted in a motor vehicle crash in the act of driving. Sometime during the 1990s — and I remember it well — we had a debate about whether a person who opened their car door in the path of a cyclist and injured that cyclist was in fact in the act of driving. Were they driving, or were they simply in the motor vehicle? It was a legal grey area, and in fact it was determined at the time after a bit of a campaign that that was included and therefore cyclists who are hit by car doors are in fact covered by the TAC. Here we are today looking at legislation that again seeks to define or in some cases prescribe what types of accidents and what level of payment might be made available under this scheme.
As I said, the bill is restoring access to the scheme for those who have suffered a mental injury and trauma suffered by families in some types of fatal road crash accidents and also emergency service workers who suffer mental trauma as a result of attending crashes. These benefits were removed as part of a suite of amendments by the previous Liberal government. At the time I met with some groups representing victims of traffic accidents, those who had survived when their children, husbands, other loved ones had died, and they continue to support those who have to deal with the Transport Accident Commission as their insurer and, in addition to retaining their rights, are also dealing with the ongoing payments that might be made.
The commitment from the government at the election — that is, from the Labor Party — was to:
Reverse the cruel changes the government —
that is, the Liberal government —
made to deny the grieving families of people who die or are severely injured in transport accidents the right to seek compensation for mental injury or nervous shock.
I believe this is achieved by clauses 3, 5 and 6. Clause 7 makes the changes retrospective. Does the bill reverse all of the objectionable elements of the 2013 bill? Well, I could go into some considerable detail, going clause by clause; however, I understand the coalition is also seeking to have the bill brought into committee in order to ask some questions of its own. So I might just actually hold fire until then.
As I said, Labor in 2013 opposed these reforms for broadly the same reasons as the Greens did at the time. We moved a reasoned amendment to delay debate until consultation could be carried out, because there was in fact no consultation. But Labor was in fact voting against the bill as a whole at the end of debate.
The Law Institute of Victoria has welcomed this bill and its reforms. Its media release says that it lobbied for this reform. As I said, I have checked back in with the interested parties, including Margaret Markovic, president of Road Trauma Families Victoria. She said the minister had been in touch with her earlier this year about the proposed reforms and indicated that there had been some close consultation. That is in contrast to the way the previous government brought in its 2013 changes. I must say I have been very glad to be able to support people like Margaret and, through her, all the possible victims of road trauma and their families. This is an ever-present problem.
The ripple effects of 250 or so fatalities and many, many more serious injuries, an increasing proportion of those being both pedestrians and cyclists, means that we have a big job in front of us as a Parliament to ensure that we see that road toll continue to decline so that measures like this become less and less necessary over time.
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