Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - I will be making a fairly brief contribution to this. I thank the member for Apsley for bringing this matter forward for discussion but I cannot let the opportunity go by to raise the issue of the Dilston bypass. In making comment on that, I want to refer to the annual report and make some quotes from it as to what DIER says is its responsibility in relation to road safety. If you turn to pages 13 and 14 of that report, 1.3 road safety - and it refers to the Tasmanian Road Safety Strategy 2007-16, and I quote:

'Launched in June 2007 the strategy provides a 10-year strategic direction for road safety initiatives in Tasmania. The strategy is evidence-based, uses the safe-systems, best-practice approach to road safety and draws upon the experiences of countries that have successfully reduced road trauma, such as Sweden.'

Sweden is referred to in many of the writings in relation to road safety. Sweden is one of the countries that is seen to be setting the benchmark for road safety in the world, and it is not surprising that DIER should pick up on that and make some reference to Sweden. I quote further:

'The strategy recognises that drivers and riders make mistakes and that crashes will occur. It focuses on changes that can be made to vehicles, travel speeds, roads and the roadside environment so that if a crash does occur injuries will be less severe and death may be prevented.'

The Dilston bypass has not been designed in the safest way. It is far from that.

Madam PRESIDENT - Member for Windermere , before you go too far into this, you have given me notice of a matter of public importance for tomorrow. I urge you to consider in which arena you wish to put that matter of public importance because you cannot double bite on the cherry, if you know what I mean. You need to broaden your take a little bit, I think.

Mr DEAN - Madam President, I was going to take the opportunity to take two bites of the cherry, I must confess that, but I was not going to go into it at any great length at all, other than to flag it in this situation with regard to the road safety strategies of DIER. So I will take your advice, Madam President, and I will do exactly that.

I simply want to flag that there are issues about that and, very clearly, I will be raising that tomorrow in another part and, of course, in a different way.

But I want to go on to page 14 of the document, and I quote again - this is one of the strategies of DIER. I quote:

'By 2010, a 20 per cent reduction in serious injuries and fatalities from 2005. By 2015, a 20 per cent reduction in serious injuries and fatalities from 2010 and by 2020, a 20 per cent reduction in serious injuries and fatalities from 2015.'

I cannot see any of those targets being met by DIER unless they plan and build safe infrastructure - safe roads - and in that respect we can see the changes being made to the Longford intersection on the Illawarra Road, which will go some way towards achieving what they set out here, and so would a similar position be achieved if the right infrastructure is included in the bypass at Dilston as well.

I want to refer briefly to the four very strong strategic directions that DIER have identified for themselves and this has been referred to on many occasions, and I again quote from the annual report. The first one is 'safer travel speeds', the second one is 'best practice infrastructure through increased safety for young road users and for enhanced vehicle safety'. Of course, we all support that but what I say is that DIER ought to practise some of these things that they say they are going to do. It is simply a nonsense to include it in documentation to say that you are going to do these things when in actual fact it means nothing.

What in fact they are saying is that they will incorporate these four strategies if it suits them; if they have the finances, perhaps, to do it, they may consider it. That, to me, is not good enough and not good enough for the public and not good enough for the community either.

I just flagged the situation in relation to Dilston bypass and I will not raise that any further because of the situation tomorrow.

I want to refer to page 16 - safer travel speeds. Once again, I will quote under that heading, safer travel speeds:

'Speeding is targeted as a high risk road user behaviour and work with councils and community groups includes the operation of digital speed display trailers. The trailers use radar to display actual vehicle travel speeds in the hope of increasing its compliance'.

That is a wonderful strategy and I commend DIER for taking that type of action. I have said in this Chamber on many occasions that I would like to see much more of it. I would like to see the fixed gantries that we see on the mainland in some places, on the very busy highways - the accident prone areas where the gantry sits across the top of the road or the highway and it identifies the speed of the vehicles that are passing under it. You can see the speed of your vehicle some distance before you get to it.

I am suggesting that that is the sort of thing that we should be looking at. I commend DIER and I think DIER have been involved in the illuminated school signs that we currently have in place. They are absolutely a wonderful strategy and my first experience was only about two weeks ago, when I was driving along the Invermay Road in Launceston, outside the St Finn Barr's Primary School. And to see the light there, very clear, 40 kilometres an hour - nobody can miss it. It was interesting to see the vehicles slowing down and travelling at 40 - I have never seen a vehicle slow down to 40 kilometre per hour probably in that area before, whether school is in, out or anything else. It has made a significant difference, so we commend DIER for taking that course of action and the sooner that type of light or warning is fitted to all the schools in this State, I think the better it is going to be for everybody as it will provide a much greater safety zone for schoolchildren who, unfortunately, do not always look to see what is happening or what is going on and they cross at times taking a huge risk in doing so. That will have a huge impact.

I might say that it was five years ago that I raised that with DIER, as did Mr Paul Mulcahy, who was the Principal of the Invermay Primary School at the time. We had a meeting and we were then concerned about the crossing guards, in particular where crossing guards were absent and there was a need to bring somebody else in to perform that function who did not have the background or the experience to do so. It started at that school when the principal, Paul Mulcahy, spoke to a person from DIER in the Launceston office, saying that they had nobody to perform that task and on that occasion he was told to provide a teacher. He was concerned because the teachers, he said, did not have that experience and that ability to control traffic in those situations. That was about five years ago. Lots of reports were submitted following that. As I said, that is a wonderful achievement.

I spoke to a parent at the Invermay Primary School the other day and they were very strong in their praise in relation to that school sign at Invermay. That would be the case, I would suspect, with all the schools where those signs now are. That is a wonderful achievement and will go to some way to achieving a reduction in accidents, as I said a short time ago.

The other thing I want to mention is that I have a position on student fares on school buses and my strong position is and always will be that no child should have to pay to go to school. No child should have to pay a bus fare because, to me, it is probably one of the best examples of discrimination that I can currently identify. What it is saying to parents is, if you are fortunate enough to live close to a school or in a certain zone, you do not have to pay anything. But if you take an initiative and want to move into the country or into some other areas, Hadspen and some of these other areas, then it is going to cost you money to send your child to school.

Ms Forrest - That is the opposite to how it works. You pay in town and you do not pay in a rural zone.

Mr DEAN - No. I said, if you live near a school you can walk to school.

Ms Forrest - It is still quicker in town to catch buses, though.

Ms Thorp - Quick recovery.

Mr DEAN - That is what I am saying. I will make it clearer. If you live close to school, within walking distance of a school, it costs you nothing.

Mr Parkinson - It costs you money to drive your kids to school.

Mr DEAN - It may well do. That is a matter for parents. That is a matter that they determine, isn't it, whether or not they do that? But I do not think that any child should have to -

Mr Parkinson - If you do not drive them to school it would probably cost you less to send them on a bus.

Mr DEAN - School is compulsory. You have no choice. You can home-school in certain circumstances, but the fact is, you must send your child to school.

Ms Thorp - How about free as long as you go to your local zone school, but you pay for bus fares if you go to anywhere else?

Mr DEAN - Yes, that is a reasonable argument worthy of listening to, that if you, as a parent, elect to send your child to a school out of your zone, out of your area, then perhaps there should be some contribution made by the parents in those situations. I think that is quite a reasonable argument to put forward in those circumstances. But under no circumstances should you have to pay, in my view, to go to a school that is zoned in your area in any situation. That is the strong position I put.

If you go back you do not have to go back that far to find where that was the situation, there was little or no cost to students going to school. I can go back to my country school days -

Mr Parkinson - Somebody pays along the line somewhere.

Mr DEAN - The public pays, of course they do. I am not saying they do not pay, of course they pay. I am saying that that is something that the public should expect to have to pay for by way of taxes and the other revenue that the State Government is able to raise to send children to school.

Ms Thorp - Bus fare subsidies currently cost the State, I think, about $54 million a year, maybe more. It is a lot of money.

Mr DEAN - What is the position, though?

Ms Thorp - I am just saying that is how much is spent already subsidising bus fares.

Mr DEAN - It is compulsory that they go to school. Why should we discriminate in relation to some children?

Ms Thorp - I don't agree we are.

Mr DEAN - You might not agree but that is the argument that a lot of parents are now putting forward. I cannot accept that and find it difficult to understand why.

Mr Parkinson - A lot of other parents might say that once their children stop going to school they shouldn't have to pay for bus fares.

Mr DEAN - No, that is not a realistic argument.

Mr Parkinson - I am just saying it is another argument that other parents might mount.

Mr DEAN - I do not think that that would be a reasonable argument in all the circumstances. I put my position there; that is the way I see it in relation to that. I would need convincing that it should be any other way in the circumstances.

I think it is a good report but there are situations in there that I am saying DIER should stand by. If they are going to put these issues in reports, if they are going to have a strategy, then they ought to practise some of those strategies.

Mr Parkinson - If they say they have a strategy they have a strategy. I don't see what your argument is.

Mr DEAN - You are right, they have a strategy. It is all very well to have a strategy but adhering to it and putting it into practise is a whole different situation. We talk about the safest road infrastructure, if that is going to be there it ought to be adhered to in all the circumstances. What is the point in having it there if it is not going to be adhered to or only adhered to in some situations?