Opening speech at the National Level Safety Crossing Roundtable

SPEAKER: Thank you for the callisthenics this morning too. For those of us who haven’t been to the gym yet, that was a good little workout as well.

Okay, I’d now like introduce [indistinct] to Minister King to say a few words and officially open today’s National Level Safety Crossing Roundtable, Minister. Please make her welcome.

CATHERINE KING: Thanks very much, Russell. And I, too, would like to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands on which we gather and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging, and particularly thank Shannon in that great tradition of First Nations storytelling, actually sharing and educating some people today about welcome to country’s aetiology and its importance to First Nations people, but also what a special country that we live in that we actually share this land with 65,000 years of history and storytelling. So it’s lovely to hear that this morning.

Can I also start by acknowledging particularly, why are we all here today? Too many Australians have been killed on level crossings. Too many have been injured, and too many workers, whether on trains or in trucks, have been witnesses to really horrific events. And that’s why we’ve all come together today.

I want to thank particularly Pacific National for their advocacy of this summit following the tragic deaths of Mick and Kevin on New Year’s Eve, and I acknowledge particularly for many members of the RTBU, they are friends and colleagues and are still grieving to this very day and have been supporting their families through that.

And I thank all of you for taking the time. This is a roundtable – it’s not really round; it’s actually a rectangle that we’re in, and it’s huge. I did not expect when I walked in, that there’d be so many people in the room. But I think the fact that there are and where you have all come from is a testimony to how seriously you take this issue and how much change you want to see.

Can I also acknowledge my friend and state colleague Jenny Atkinson, who is the New South Wales Minister for Regional Roads. I particularly thank Jenny for making the journey up to Brisbane today. I know she’s really passionate about this area as both she and I live in regional Australia and we deal with and see the impact of this issue on our own communities as well.

Again, I want to thank you all from industry, from research organisations, from unions, from state, local government and even New Zealanders coming here as well to take part.

As you know, there are over 23,000 level crossings in Australia and the majority of those public roads or crossings are in our regions. Incidents at level crossings have significant and long-lasting impacts on individuals, communities and the industry that’s involved. They both impact both road users, rail workers alongside with broader communities.

The Australian Government is committed to working with our jurisdictions to achieve zero harm at level crossings, and will be collectively implementing a range of actions to achieve this. Improving, of course, safety at level crossings is a complex issue, and there is, I know, a lot of expertise in this room. But what I’d really ask you to do today is listen to each other’s perspectives, experiences and to evidence and be open minded to sharing where you think change can happen and where you think responsibility lies to actually make that change, including with your own organisations and your own workforces.

This summit isn’t about road versus rail – I know that sometimes it can be characterised as such. It’s about of us collectively understanding each other’s perspectives. These are your workplaces, your workers’ workplaces. They are also public roads in which all of us and our families travel on. So all of us together have a responsibility to try and make the best change we can. And, really, my expectation out of today is that’s the spirit that it will be entered into.

A couple of things that we’re doing already at the Commonwealth level that you may or may not be aware of is we’re progressively rolling out $180 million over the next five years to try and look at level crossing safety in regional areas, both practical improvements that can be made at specific level crossings but also trying to build the evidence base as well. We’ve committed over $160 million to actually making sure with state and territory governments, also kicking in money to actually improve gates, improve lighting where we can, improve visibility and improve maintenance work and those upgrades will target level crossings and have bigger safety benefits from that. But also, through research and innovation grants, specifically research to trial new technologies and new approaches to improve rail crossing safety. The Data Improvement grants to ONRSR enabling that organisation to improve data and risk assessment of level crossings by operating at a national level crossing portal, and with the states we’ve also tasked ONRSR with developing a code of practice to improve train illumination, and that code of practice is expected to be finalised in the first half of this year. 

With many of the organisations represented today, [indistinct] with the National Level Crossing Safety Strategy, which was endorsed by infrastructure and transport ministers recently and released, the vision of the strategy is zero harm at Australia’s level [indistinct] committed to safe systems approach at level crossings, consistent, of course, with the National Road Safety Strategy as well. And I want to thank everyone for the support of that strategy.

But, as I said, today is really about not just the strategy and the measures that are in that; today is really coming from each of the perspectives that you have and the workforces that you have, to try and look at what else we might be able to do beyond what’s in the strategy or also how we might need to bring some of those measures forward in the strategy.

I do want to wish you all the very best in your deliberations today. I want to thank you, again, for taking the time to come together and take the time out of your day with busy organisations to actually travel here and to participate. I want to thank Queensland, in particular, for hosting us but also for all of the work and effort and staff that you’ve put into this. Again, I think it is testament to all of you about how seriously you take this issue. And, again, I acknowledge the circumstances in which we come together today with the loss most tragically of Mick and Kevin earlier this year and hope that this brings some comfort a little to their families that we’ve actually come together to take action together to try and make sure that these events will get down to zero. We’ll do the best we possibly can to make sure this doesn’t happen to any other workers and any other families in our industries.

But thanks for having me today. And I officially open the National Level Crossing Safety Roundtable – or rectangle as it’s well known and known from now on. Thank you.