Member for Barker and Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Tony Pasin MP is calling for road safety to be back on the Infrastructure and Transport Minister’s meeting agenda.
Mr Pasin said under the former Coalition Government, meetings of Infrastructure and Transport Minister’s listed Road Safety as the first item on the agenda, signalling its importance. Only to find out that at the first Infrastructure and Transport meeting under the new Labor Government held in August, road safety wasn’t even listed as a discussion item.
“The new Federal Labor Government obviously doesn’t see road safety as a priority,” Mr Pasin said.
Mr Pasin said the need to collect data to inform and measure road safety was paramount to informing policy and investment into road safety, as well as the development of the National Road Safety Action Plan and that this was an important item of discussion in previous Infrastructure and Transport Minister’s meetings.
“We need a coordinated national approach to road safety data. The former Coalition Government was committed to establishing a national data sharing agreement with States and Territories, but this no longer seems to be a focus at Labor’s Infrastructure and Transport Minister’s meetings,” Mr Pasin said.
Current data collected by States and Territories is not coordinated nationally, and it lacks details in many key areas such as serious injury.
“There needs to be consistent metrics and reporting formats for data coordinated and made available at a national level to inform policy and investment in road safety across all levels of government and stakeholders.
“The Australian Automobile Association has been calling for this for some time and the Coalition Government were making in-roads having tasked the Office of Road Safety to work with the states and territories to develop a national data sharing agreement.
“It’s incredibly disappointing to see that the matter of road safety isn’t even on the Labor Government’s agenda.
“Labor need to come clean and tell Australian’s if they are serious about reducing road trauma.” Mr Pasin said.
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