Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was extremely disappointed last week with the unilateral declaration of the South Australian government to cut speed limits on eight roads throughout regional South Australia—council roads in the main. Three of them are in my electorate. I can see very little reason for this, apart from the fact that the state government seems intent on starving these roads of funds for upgrading, and then because the roads become too dangerous, because they are too rough, they downgrade the speed rating. They use crash statistics to justify these speed reductions, but there was a very similar announcement back in 2011. I went back and checked some of the figures from before and after that period.

Figures are scant and difficult to come by. The South Australian government certainly do not supply them. I have found on the South Australia Police site figures that might shed some light on what happened in 2011. Those reductions happened in the Yorke and Mid-North area—on the Yorke Peninsula, within 100 kilometres of Adelaide, and some roads beyond into the Mid-North. There are five or six main regions in South Australia. Eyre Western haven't had any speed reductions until now. In fact, the crash data has gone down in Eyre Western. In the Limestone Coast, it's gone down. In the Adelaide Hills and Fleurieu, it's gone down. In the Far North, it's gone down. In the Murray and Mallee region, it's gone down. In fact, the only one that hasn't gone down is where they put the 100 kilometres speed restrictions in, and that's gone up. Yet they say this decision is based on crash statistics.

What I'm really appalled about is they seem to have done no consultation at all. I drive 80,000 or 90,000 kilometres a year on these roads and they didn't come and ask me for advice. Two members of the South Australian government live in regional South Australia. One, the member for Giles, lives in Whyalla. He normally flies to Adelaide, and if he drives he drives on a national highway, which still has a 110 kilometres speed limit. The other one, Minister Geoff Brock, lives in Port Pirie. Guess what? He's got a chauffeured car, a ministerial car, to take him to Adelaide so he's not going to be worried about the speed restrictions. The minister who makes these decisions, Peter Malinauskas in the Legislative Council, has a chauffeured car as well. They know nothing about getting around country and regional South Australia. They inflict their damage on the people who live there without actually asking them for advice. Come to us, get advice, and then you might get the right answer.