Comment on today’s news from the Deputy Prime Minister that he will be sending the National Road Safety Strategy (NRSS) back to state Ministers.  

Thursday, 27 January 2022

The next ten-year national road safety strategy that aims to halve the road toll by 2030 is to be sent back to all states for review after experts warned that the Strategy’s Action Plan, transparency and level of data were not sufficient to reduce the national road toll.  Today’s news item.

In a letter sent to the Deputy Prime Minister, a consortium of leading transport and health associations led by the Australian Automobile Association including We Ride Australia, raised concerns that funding was not tied to safety outcomes and that data collection and action items in the NRSS had to be strengthened to achieve the reduction in road toll.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Minister said,

“The Deputy Prime Minister appreciates industry’s ongoing concerns regarding data collection and the need for action items to be strengthened, to ensure the strategy’s goals can be delivered.

“That’s why the Deputy Prime Minister has listed those issues for discussion at the next infrastructure and transport ministers’ meeting scheduled for next month.”

The Australian Automobile Association’s, managing director Michael Bradley said that, unlike school or hospital funding to the states, federal funding for road infrastructure had no “strings attached” to ensure projects actually improved road safety.

“State and federal governments have the opportunity to spend infrastructure dollars in areas or projects which are politically helpful rather than those projects which deliver the most safety benefits, and that’s a huge problem,” Mr Bradley said.

We Ride Australia’s Director of National Advocacy, Stephen Hodge, who participated in the Ministerial consultations for the 2021-2030 10-year strategy said clear lines of responsibility for safety outcomes and the data to be able to assess interventions was vital.

“While generally road safety has improved over the last decade, it has worsened for those that ride bikes and motorcycle deaths have shown no improvement.

“The value of data has been clearly evident in the COVID-19 pandemic health response, day in and day out during the crisis with decisions on health measures able to be considered on the basis of very recent data, this is not available for road crashes,”

“We’ll continue to support an approach to road safety that is based on a transparent, data-driven action plan for the National Road Safety Strategy,” Hodge said.

Today’s news, ‘Barnaby Joyce sends road safety plan back to ministers after experts warn it would fail to reduce deaths’ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-27/joyce-revisit-road-toll-plan-safety-decade/100780488

December letter to DPM: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-20/road-safety-plan-flawed-as-toll-rises-despite-covid-lockdowns/100708076

Updated 14/2/22