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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2621 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

delay. If you proportion that out at $15m a month, they are willing to inflict an extra $30m worth of trauma and disability services on the people of the ACT. You can work out for yourself what that would be in terms of casualties and possible deaths. The sad thing about it, Mr Speaker, is that they are so out of touch with the people of the ACT that Mr Hargreaves will even cast doubt on the validity of the NRMA's research.

Mr Speaker, these people are already speeding. We have an obligation in this place to stop the ones who are breaking the law. What we have here today - and I do welcome the support of the Assembly on it - is the ability to implement a tool that will allow us to do that more effectively. It would be remiss of us if in the implementation of this legislation we were to allow the John Hargreaveses and the Labor parties of the world to permit people to continue speeding excessively for a further two months.

In 1995 the Government did an in-depth crash study which concluded that excessive or inappropriate speeds were a factor in 50 per cent of crashes. Mr Speaker, would you not like to reduce the impact of speeding in half the crashes that occur in the ACT? The Liberal Party certainly would, the Government would and I understand most of the crossbenchers would. I cannot for the life of me understand why the Labor Party would delay that impact by two months.

Mr Speaker, the use of speed cameras will cut road trauma and the resultant hospital, rehabilitation and insurance costs. It is interesting that Mr Hargreaves was outside at lunchtime saying to the press that he did not believe the research. I think it is appropriate to put on the record what Mr Hargreaves and his Labor Party do not believe. Just in case there should be any doubt at all on the validity of these figures, Victoria - let us be honest, a State governed by a Liberal party - said that the proportion of crash vehicles exceeding the speed limit fell by about 80 per cent and the number of fatalities and injury crashes fell by about 20 per cent, with the greatest impact, about 30 per cent, being on arterial roads.

Given that the vast majority of our speeding is done on our arterial roads and that our arterial road system is very good, we could expect an even greater impact. If you do not want to believe Jeffrey's figures from Victoria, let us go to Queensland, a Labor State. The proportion of vehicles exceeding the speed limit fell by about 80 per cent. A 61 per cent - - -

Mr Hargreaves: I do not believe it.

MR SMYTH: Mr Hargreaves interjects that he does not believe it. Clearly, Mr Hargreaves does not believe anything. In Queensland, there was a 61 per cent decrease in speeding offences after cameras were introduced and a 24 per cent reduction in road fatalities in the year following speed camera introduction. Labor and Mr Hargreaves do not want to believe that. In South Australia the proportion of vehicles exceeding the speed limit by over 10 kilometres an hour fell by about 85 per cent and there was a 15 per cent reduction in casualty crashes in the year after the speed cameras were introduced.

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