This morning in Parliament during the debate on the Road Transport Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2019, I took the opportunity to raise serious road safety issues about Hillsborough Road once again:



I speak briefly in debate on the Road Transport Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2019. The purpose of the bill, as stated by the Minister in his second reading speech, is to give effect to a number of reforms to improve road safety. Road safety is very high on the agendas of many people who live in my electorate; being able to get from point A to point B without accident or impediment is frequently raised with me by locals and visitors alike.

The bill proposes amendments to certain provisions of the driver licence disqualification reforms introduced by the Government in 2017, seeks to clarify the circumstances in which police are able to request blood and urine samples from drivers involved in fatal offroad accidents to enhance evidencegathering capabilities, and includes amendments that will put beyond doubt the circumstances in which a motor vehicle assessor must notify the respective heavy or light writtenoff vehicles registers of a damaged vehicle.

The amendments are designed to properly express the intention of the original law, following some years of interpretation by the courts. It is right that we, as legislators, seek to improve the law if we know that it is not achieving what it aimed to do, which is improve road safety. There are myriad ways to improve road safety, which is such an issue to each of us in this place, and I welcome these changes. My electorate of Charlestown contains a number of State roads, including the Pacific Highway, Hillsborough Road and Charlestown Road, along with some major arterial roads. My office has received hundreds of complaints about road safety on those roads and the dangers people face not only driving on them, but also crossing them as pedestrians.

Hillsborough Road is the road most often complained about in my electorate. It has numerous safety issues, which I have consistently raised in this Parliament. I have previously spoken in this place about the death of a 15yearold girl, Jade, from injuries she received when she was hit by a car while crossing Hillsborough Road to get to swimming training. The loss of her young life resulted in a heartfelt outpouring of grief.

This bill is aimed at improving road safety, which is certainly a worthwhile and absolutely necessary intention. But let us be clear: Hillsborough Road is one of the Hunter's busiest roads. It is a choke point for traffic and offers little access to safe pedestrian crossings.

One aspect of the bill relates to the circumstances in which blood and urine samples can be taken from drivers. In the case of that 15-year-old girl, samples were taken from the driver, who was traumatised, I must say, by the accident. The samples came back clear. The condition and layout of Hillsborough Road was the issue.

The road has long been plagued with road safety issues and many people were angry that their predictions of a death were allowed to eventuate. In the past two decades, this long road joining Charlestown with Warners Bay has become an increasingly busy thoroughfare.

There are major shopping and entertainment destinations on both sides of the road, which funnels into the equally busy King Street and Macquarie Road through an often congested roundabout. It is a stretch of suburban road that has struggled to keep pace with the area's growth, development and expansion and has become increasingly dangerous as the years have passed.

Immediately after the fatal accident, I wrote to the Minister for Roads, Maritime and Freight requesting interim shortterm safety measures be adopted. I acknowledge the work of the local staff and engineers at Roads and Maritime Servicesnow Transport NSWin pulling together some interim solutions aimed at improving safety along that stretch of road until proper funding for a full solution is finally provided by this Government. But despite Jade's tragic accident, there have been no significant commitments to funding the Hillsborough Road upgrade and the recommendations of the $4million traffic study in 2015.

This Government, in its eight years in office, has failed to commit the necessary significant funding for construction to improve the safety of Hillsborough Road. I certainly hope that the amendments contained in this bill do, in fact, improve road safety. Unfortunately, they will not bring the improvements that are required along Hillsborough Road, but I truly hope that the funding needed to provide significant road safety upgrades on the main road headache in my electorate, Hillsborough Rd, comes soon. People's lives depend upon it.