Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

If there's one topic that should be above politics, it's our road toll. No words can describe the pain felt by a family member or a friend impacted by a death or a serious injury on our roads. Every death on Australian roads is a tragedy and much more than just a statistic. Each casualty is a friend and might be a mother, a father or a child. The trauma of their loss echoes through the community and echoes through generations.

Territorians know this all too well. Thirty lives have been lost so far this calendar year, compared to just six last year, so things aren't tracking well. The Territory's road toll per capita is three times higher than the rest of Australia. Just this weekend past, we had eight traffic accidents, with 17 Territorians needing to be hospitalised or receive health care. Particularly today—if anyone happens to be listening—Territory Day, when everyone is having a good time and celebrating self-government, but also every day, please slow down on the roads. Please do not drink and drive. Pedestrians, keep off the roads.

As the federal government, we are getting on with implementing the National Road Safety Strategy. This is underpinned by the National road safety action plan 2023-2025, which is in collaboration with all the states and territories and our local governments. I acknowledge the work of our local governments when it comes to maintaining our road network, because they manage the lion's share of it. From my federal seat of Solomon, we have several members of both the City of Darwin and the City of Palmerston down here in Canberra, so it is a big week down here in Canberra for local governments. I wish them well and acknowledge their work.

I also acknowledge the Albanese federal Labor government's work on Roads to Recovery funding, which we are doubling from $500 million to $1 billion. I chair the local black spots committee in the Northern Territory, so I'm pleased that we've also substantially increased funding for the Black Spot Program, which is rising from $110 million to $150 million per year.

This motion calls for data collection and collaboration with the states and territories. Well, our road safety action plan is already linked to data collection arrangement with the states and territories. We are a cooperative and collaborative government, which is in our DNA, and I think Australians have already seen that through the National Cabinet. This is a key action under our plan for road safety data to be efficiently exchanged and published, a vital step forward to improving road safety and something that our Albanese federal government has been working tirelessly to achieve.

Moreover, a few months ago in April, in an historic first, each of the state and territory governments signed an intergovernmental road safety data sharing agreement. The Commonwealth will look to improve data sharing from the states and territories through our upcoming federation funding agreement negotiations as well. For the first time, we'll seek to include, in this negotiated agreement with the states, a requirement for the provision of a nationally consistent dataset.

But we're putting our money where our mouth is to support this effort. Our government has committed $21 million to the National Road Safety Data Hub to support enhanced evidence-based road safety strategies to eliminate road trauma by 2050. The government is committed to delivering a nationally harmonised set of high-quality and timely data, which will inform our already comprehensive road safety measures aimed at realising this Vision Zero target—that is, zero fatalities and zero serious injuries on our roads. In short, our government is already doing what the member for Barker has moved in this motion. (Time expired)

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