I am pleased to speak to the Transport Legislation (Road
Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. There are a range of measures aimed at road safety, but I
will largely address the sections concerning interlock programs and point-to-point speed cameras.
It is good to see that education programs will be introduced and extended for drink-driving
offenders. First-time drink-drivers will be required to complete a brief intervention education program
prior to being re-licensed. This program will be delivered online. It will give people strategies to separate
drinking and driving and outline why it is important. Repeat offenders will be required to complete a
more intensive multisession education program. The program will be undertaken while the offender is
participating in the interlock program and will need to be successfully completed before the interlock
condition can be removed from their licence. To successfully complete the program people must
demonstrate they have separated their drinking and driving. It is about culture change.
The bill will also introduce measures to increase the current two-year sit-out period to five years
where people have refused to participate in the interlock program. It is good to see that we have
bipartisan support for that and other measures in the bill. The interlock program is also being expanded
to include mid-range drink-driving where there is a blood alcohol between .1 and .149. Mid-range
drink-drivers account for more than a quarter of all offenders and have a crash risk 20 times greater
than someone who has not had a drink, so it is good to see measures that cover mid-range drink-drivers
and not just high-level drink-drivers. Other amendments include that, where a defendant pleads guilty,
a court will be allowed to deal with a charge of drug driving before the laboratory test results are known.
That will get rid of a bit of red tape.
Other amendments clarify that, if a person has been disqualified by the court of another state,
their Queensland driver’s licence is cancelled from the date the person became disqualified. There are
also measures that ensure that driver licensing decisions are subject to internal review before
proceeding to QCAT. The bill also covers infringement notices for camera detected offences so that, in
a situation where you were not the driver but you receive the photo in the mail, you do not have to
complete a statutory declaration. There is an online method of passing that on to the real offender. That
is useful in a work situation where a work vehicle may be licensed to one person but they are not the
one driving it on the day, or if your spouse was driving and you were not and other situations such as
that. That is a good, sensible measure that the bill addresses.
Speaking more generally with regard to road safety in my electorate of Aspley, late last year it
was good to see the minister visit the electorate to announce new ‘hold the red’ traffic light technology.
Good technological changes like that combined with good legislative changes are really a combined
approach to reducing the road toll. This technology has been introduced in Aspley at the Gympie Road
and Robinson Road intersection. If a car is going through a red traffic light, it will not turn green in the
other direction for the cross-intersection until the car has gone through. This technology will prevent

T-bone collisions where someone has gone 80 kilometres an hour and they clean someone up who just
accelerates normally when a light turns green. This is a really good measure. As Minister Bailey
stated—
Hold the Red is an active collision prevention system using radar to detect vehicles that are about to run a red light.
When the danger is identified the opposing traffic lights are held on red to halt drivers waiting for their lights to change to green.
It is good to see this technological approach go hand in hand with a legislative approach to address
these issues.
The committee consulted fairly thoroughly. Consultation with all interested relevant parties was
very positive. The only issues related to more information being sought, which was provided to the
satisfaction of groups such as RACQ, Queensland Law Society, Transurban and the Queensland
Council for Civil Liberties. It is good to see bipartisan support for a bill such as this, which will go a long
way to changing the culture of drink-driving even more. Amongst offenders it will really separate the
drinking from the driving and break that link amongst repeat offenders in particular. I commend the bill
to the House.