Hansard debates

Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (13:16): I am pleased to be able to speak about the wildlife road strike inquiry, and I thank my fellow committee members and the secretariat for their work on this. As Mr Welch mentioned, we did submit a minority report. Road strike is a huge issue in Victoria, particularly in regional Victoria. We know that there have been over 10,000 accidents or collisions, and many, many more are unreported, so we know that the data is missing. A number of recommendations are things like improving our roads, maintenance on our roads, clearance of roadsides, also driver education and training and how important that is, and the need for a centralised number. If you are in that situation where you hit wildlife, what do you do? At the moment there is a number of different numbers you can call.

Population mitigation is important because we know that there is a huge number of kangaroos in our region, and wombats and deer are also spreading. Speed limits were discussed. But we heard that you can hit a kangaroo at any speed, doing even 30 kilometres an hour. As has been highlighted, the lack of data really inhibited the ability to make recommendations, but it was clear that Victoria is very unique. We have thousands of kilometres of roads, so it is a very big challenge that we face.

I do want to thank all those who made a submission, because your contribution to this was very important. One of the recommendations that we put forward was the need for a code of practice, because there are so many volunteers, including the CFA and the SES and our wildlife rescuers, engaged in this issue, to ensure that there is not overlap. We look forward to the government’s response because this is a very important issue, particularly in northern Victoria.