Mark Doran: So many things to get through in this hour, including this. It’s a follow-up, if you like, to the story we opened up with at the top of the program, where the stats are out—came out today—about national road trauma and the data associated with that for 2025, the year complete. For the first time since 2010, total road deaths surpassed 1,300. Not good. In 2025, 197 of those 1,300 or thereabouts were pedestrians killed on Australian roads. That’s the highest number since 2007.
We spoke to, off the top of the program, the CEO of the Pedestrian Council of Australia, who was not wrapped about those numbers. And we talked about what we could do to try to lower the road toll in general—be it pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, or passengers and drivers of cars. I think we all agree that number is too high. 133-882, we’ll open those lines again later for you. How do we lower the road toll?
Some interesting ideas were thrown up, including 30k speed limits in built-up areas, and asked the question: “How low can we go?” when we talk about not speed limits, but the road toll. Mentioned in that discussion, the fact that the Coalition had called for the Albanese Government to do better. “The National Road Safety Strategy has failed the people of Australia,” or so says the Coalition, and we have WA Senator Matt O’Sullivan on the program right now to talk more about that. Senator, good afternoon.
Senator O’Sullivan: Oh, very good to be with you, thanks Mark. This is of course sad news, though, isn’t it? Disappointing to see that our road deaths are continuing to go up, even though there was a commitment to get it reduced, signed up by all levels of government—State and Federal. And unfortunately, not only are we not on track, we’re going backwards.
Mark Doran: The fifth consecutive year of growth in road trauma. Can we start there? How low can we go? Like, we cannot get to zero—that’s impossible. What is something we could aim at that is realistic?
Senator O’Sullivan: Well look, obviously you’ve got to live in the real world, but we’ve got to aim for zero, right? That’s where we have to aim. Anything more than that is accepting failure, so we have to aim for zero. In fact, that’s what all the governments—all levels of government—have signed up to, is to reduce road deaths to zero.
Now, there are very practical things, steps that can be taken. Obviously, state governments and the police have a serious role to play when it comes to enforcement. Federally, the government has a big role to play in terms of investment in infrastructure and roads to improve the safety of roads. Of course, vehicle manufacturers have a role to play in increasing the safety of vehicles, and of course road users themselves have a big role to play in in adhering to the rules and being attentive and doing what they can to, you know, keep safe on the roads.
Mark Doran: Yeah, I’d have to say I disagree with you. Aiming at zero is unrealistic and doesn’t help. I think there has to be a realistic target, but maybe we’re splitting hairs there. You say, the Coalition says, Senator, that the National Road Safety Strategy has failed the Australian people because since its introduction in 2021, these are your numbers I’m quoting, road deaths have increased by 22% and pedestrian fatalities have risen by almost 50%.
Senator O’Sullivan: That’s right. And in that same time, we’ve seen a slashing of funding when it comes to regional roads. We know that more than 50% of serious incidents and fatalities occur on our regional roads, and the Federal Government have reduced the funding that normally goes into these projects from 80% to 50%. And that means that the burden of ensuring that those roads are safe and adequate for road users is being borne by local governments out in regional areas.
And that’s not sustainable; they haven’t got the rate base to be able to continue with that. And so the Federal Government has to step up, yet they’ve slashed that funding. We’ve got to restore that; we’ve got to restore the local roads and community infrastructure program that enables local councils and shires to be able to invest in the roads and the safety.
And we know that really simple things like widening the shoulders, audible line markers, improved or increased signage and lighting can, these low-cost things, can actually make a really big impact. It’s not just about the big expensive bits of infrastructure that are necessary; it’s even some of those small things. Yet local governments haven’t got the capacity to deal with that. We know that the Federal Government had the idea that the best way to deal with this is just to reduce the speed limit. Well, you know, speed signs don’t fill potholes. If local governments are dealing with that lack of funding, they’re not resourced to be able to ensure roads are safe and up to standard.
Mark Doran: From our message machine here, one of our listeners, Andrew, shares your thoughts there but has a different spin on it: “Hi, clearly speed cameras aren’t keeping down the road deaths. It’s distracted drivers with phones and technology in their cars”.
Senator O’Sullivan: You’d have to say, and without having the necessarily the evidence, but anecdotally, any reasonable person would see that with the increase of use of these devices, that distraction has a major impact on fatalities and indeed serious incidents.
We don’t have data on the number of people in hospitals and in rehabilitation as a result of—we get accurate data of course when it comes to deaths—but we know that serious trauma is also on the rise as well. And so, yeah, look, state governments and the local authorities are doing important things like investing in technology around AI cameras that are detecting use of mobile phones and other distractions within the vehicles. Those things obviously need to continue, and any improvement in that technology is, of course, important as well.
Mark Doran: Talking to WA Senator Matt O’Sullivan, who’s leading the charge in this Coalition call for the Albanese Government to do more on what the Coalition is rightfully, I think, calling a road safety crisis. This from another of our listeners, Senator, from Anne: “Forget lowering speed limits, get more police out in marked cars, not detectives in unmarked cars. Police, if you see them, you always slow down, even if you’re not speeding. We used to have a lot more old cars on the road than we do now, yet the road deaths were lower. Our population has grown, so more accidents,” says Anne.
Senator O’Sullivan: Yeah, look, enforcement is a key thing. And of course that sits with the state government primarily, but it’s absolutely critical, and we know that if there isn’t that threat of being caught, human behavior sort of follows that. And so, we’ve got to make sure… look, I’m a parent with two teenage children, and the youngest one’s just got his license only a few months ago and there’s nothing more frightening than seeing your young child get into a car for the first time on their own, other than them getting into a car with a group of friends. That’s when your stress levels really go up.
If they know that they are being watched, that they’re being monitored, that they could get caught, then obviously that has a chilling effect on them being hoons and being silly. And so that is absolutely important that we get that visible, that people understand that there is consequences. You only need to talk to the families of those that have dealt with road trauma to know what the consequences are. But particularly for young people, education is key, and of course, that knowledge that law enforcement is out there.
Mark Doran: And Senator O’Sullivan, attacking or questioning, let’s put it that way, the government of the day is your job in opposition, as is coming up with alternate policies. Is this something you would be prepared to take to the next election? Albeit it would probably be unpopular, but that’s what leadership is about: the 30k per hour speed limit concept, which is not new—you’ve heard it before—but today, this morning, we spoke to the Pedestrian Council of Australia CEO who said clearly, in built-up areas, that is what’s needed, particularly with pedestrians, to save pedestrian lives.
Senator O’Sullivan: No, look, I’m not going to commit to that here and now. I think what we’ve got to do is focus on, from a federal level, what we can do, which is making sure that the infrastructure investment is there so that the roads are safe as best as they possibly can be. That obviously, you know, when it comes to the speed limits on local roads, that’s a local government and a state government responsibility. There was the federal government idea to reduce the default speed limit, that’s to say on roads that don’t have plated speed limits, and that’s obviously out in regional areas. You don’t need to go too far from Perth to go into one of those areas, Baldivis and these sort of parts, you’re driving on a road that doesn’t have a speed limit and the default is currently 100 kilometers an hour. They wanted to reduce that to 70 kilometers an hour.
Now, that might sound good on a surface level, but for regional communities where they’ve got obviously big long stretches of roads to cover, you know, that’s going to be incredibly detrimental to their productivity for workers, and it’s just not at all practical for local governments to have to work with that. So speed limits is part of it, but it’s not the only solution. We’ve got to make sure we’re investing appropriately in the other measures, including of course infrastructure, as I really focused on.
Mark Doran: And I know you’ve got to go, we’ve got to go too, but just very quickly: the Omnibus Anti-Semitism Bill. You’re back in Canberra, you’re called back early next week. Your leader Sussan Ley says it’s unsalvageable. Any chance that the hate laws will be passed?
Senator O’Sullivan: Well, I don’t support it. I think it’s not precisely dealing with the issue at hand, that is that we’ve got radical extremists that are targeting, and the anti-Semitic nature within these hate-filled activists within these communities needs to be dealt with, of course it does. But this Bill that the government have brought forward, without the proper consultation and without the work, really, that’s required, is unsatisfactory. It’s not dealing with it and in fact is going to create increased problems by creating potentially unintended consequences, as we’ve heard through the inquiry over the last two days. And so, look, the government needs to go back to the drawing board, start again, and we’ll work with them. We will absolutely work with them to come up with the right laws that are necessary, but just a broad-brush approach the way that they’ve done it is not right.
Mark Doran: Senator O’Sullivan, thank you for your time and go well next week. It is a big week for our nation. We need to take a break on that note.