Page 2310 - Week 06 - Thursday, 10 May 2012
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I congratulate the government on the vision zero concept. I think it is a terrific one. Having targets, standards and things like that is a very dangerous thing to do. Having aspirational targets is very dangerous. However, if we do not send a message out there to people that no road deaths and no injuries is the only acceptable outcome then we are not doing the right thing.
I commend the report to the chamber. Like the chair, Ms Le Couteur, I thank Mr Smyth for his involvement in it. The considerations we had were very professional. We came at it from different perspectives and we arrived at a consensus report. I would also like to thank Dr Cullen for her work, because she is amazing. This lady can actually stitch together disparate views and make some common sense out of them for the reader. She needs congratulating on that.
I would also like to thank those people who gave evidence to the committee. This is a very technical issue and some of us had a bit of trouble wrapping our heads around some of the technical issues. I thought some of the information we received with its redaction was quite amusing actually, and I thank the NRMA for coming in and clearing that matter up for the committee. Mr Speaker, I, too, commend the report to the chamber.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (10.14): I join my colleagues in welcoming the tabling of this unanimous report into compulsory third-party insurance in the ACT. It has taken us some time. The reason for that delay was, of course, the government’s failure to produce the report demanded by law in a timely fashion.
I would like to start by putting on the record some of the dismay I had at comments by the federal member for Fraser, Mr Andrew Leigh, who said that the bill was the subject of a report being delayed by the Liberals and the Greens. That was apparently on advice from Minister Barr. I hope Minister Barr will take the opportunity to say that that is not the case, that he did not give such information to Mr Leigh. It is unfortunate that somebody would use the government’s delay in producing the report required by law to blame the Liberal Party and the Greens. Through that, I suspect, they are blaming the committee process, that the committee was somehow taking too long.
Mr Leigh implies that Mr Barr told him that the reason for the delay in CTP reform was because of the actions of the Liberal Party and the Greens. If Mr Barr did say that, he misled Mr Leigh and Mr Leigh therefore misled his constituents. If Mr Barr did not tell that to Mr Leigh then Mr Leigh is misleading the community and somebody needs to clean up that particular mess. They need to clean up the mess because it is a very important issue.
If you have ever been involved in a car accident—sorry, a motor vehicle crash; we should not say “accident”. They are not accidents. If you have been involved in a motor vehicle crash or if a loved one has been in such a crash, it can have long and life-lasting effects on individuals and families. The desire to get this right is very strong given some of my experiences. I think that to jump the gun in the way the government did by saying, “We are going to reform,” even though we had not done the review and the statutory time frame had not passed, is a poor way to deliver policy.
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