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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4427 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

Are the streets better or worse in their construction? Are they narrower or wider? What are the conditions which lead to accidents, injuries and fatalities on suburban streets elsewhere? They may not be the same in Canberra, and I think we have good reason to suggest that they are not because of the standard of the roads that we have. So it would not necessarily translate directly, as Ms Tucker suggests.

In any case, given the argument that she has adopted for reducing the speed limit from 60 to 50, if the argument is valid, surely 50 is a fairly arbitrary number. Why not 40? Obviously, if you slow the traffic down by 20 kilometres an hour, the benefit is potentially much greater than if you do it by only 10. We are talking about some rather arbitrary numbers here, and there have been no statistics or anything shown for Canberra that would substantiate the proposal.

The third point that Ms Tucker made is that roads are part of the neighbourhood and there is no reason why we should assume that they necessarily belong to the motor vehicle; they are part of the neighbourhood and people should be allowed to cross them safely. I could not agree more. The fact is, however, that the majority of traffic within any suburb is generated by the people who live there. They have, surely, a duty of care. Statistically, I think it can be demonstrated that those people who live in those suburbs and whom we are trying to protect, or whom Ms Tucker is trying to protect, habitually drive at in excess of 10 kilometres an hour more than the speed limit. I suggest that changing the speed limit is not going to change their driving behaviour at all. What we really need is an attitude change, rather than just arbitrarily tinkering with the speed limits.

However, I do have an open mind on the subject and I am prepared to look at some substantial evidence that suggests that perhaps Ms Tucker is right. The suggestion to change the residential speed limit to 50 kilometres an hour has been around for some time. Indeed, it was discussed at the political level in November 1996 at a meeting of the Australian Transport Council, the national forum of Ministers for Transport and Roads from all States and Territories. The outcome of that discussion was that Ministers agreed to retain a 60 kilometres an hour general urban speed limit around Australia, and that is incorporated in the draft Australian road rules.

I attended the most recent meeting of that body in November of this year and the position of the council remains unchanged. Indeed, Mr Speaker, there has been no ground swell of public opinion demanding such a change, and until there is I submit that Ministers from around Australia are not going to place a great deal of weight on the notion that this should be changed. However, jurisdictions are free to alter their local area limits as necessary and, as a consequence of that, the New South Wales Government has commenced a three-month trial of 50 kilometres an hour speed limits in residential areas as of 1 October. That trial involves 14 councils - five in greater Sydney and nine in country New South Wales, including Queanbeyan.

The Government recognises that there may be some value in introducing lower speed limits in residential areas - I repeat that I have an open mind on this subject - but the reality is that the ACT situation is even different from that of New South Wales in several key respects. Recent research by the Federal Office of Road Safety indicates that our roads have the best safety performance of any jurisdiction in Australia and that they are comparable to the best in the world. One of the main reasons for this good performance

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