Member for South West Coast and Shadow Minister for Rural Roads Roma Britnell is encouraging people to have their say on a parliamentary inquiry into the 2019 Victorian Road Toll.
Ms Britnell said the Legislative Council’s Economy and Infrastructure Committee will examine how Victoria’s Towards Zero 2016-2020 Road Safety Strategy plans to reduce fatalities.
The inquiry follows on from a motion Ms Britnell moved in May calling for a special bi-partisan investigation to come up with solutions to stop people dying on our roads.
Unfortunately, Labor voted down the plan for a stand-alone committee and instead added the investigation to the already heavy workload of an existing parliamentary committee.
“One of the first things Labor did following the 2018 election was to abolish the long standing road safety committee,” Ms Britnell said.
“That committee had a long and proud history of significant road safety reforms, including making wearing seatbelts mandatory in 1970.
“This would have been a perfect job for that committee – but unfortunately it no longer exists and other committees have to pick up the workload.”
Ms Britnell said under her proposal, the final report of the investigation would have been due by the end of December this year but the inquiry getting under way now would not begin hearings until 2020 with a report due sometime thereafter.
“We are talking about people lives and coming up with ways to stop unnecessary deaths on our road – this should be a priority – not put on the backburner,” Ms Britnell said.
“The Labor Government should be ashamed it ended the stand alone road safety committee and that it voted down my proposal in May which would have been working on real solutions now.”
The Economy and Infrastructure Committee is taking submission until December 20 and more information can be found at www.parliament.vic.gov.au/eic-lc/article/4292
