Mr MORRIS (Mornington) (19:21): (5092) I raise a matter this evening for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, who I am delighted to see in the chamber.
The action I am seeking is the installation of cameras at the intersection of Nepean Highway, Wooralla Drive and Mount Eliza Way in Mount Eliza.
Now, I do not want to be too hard on the minister, but I did write to him on this matter three months ago and I have not yet received a response. I know he has been busy putting extra bus services into the marginal seat of Nepean, trying to shore up the fortunes of the member for Nepean down there, but this is I think an important safety issue.
In that letter I included an email from a constituent, and I will just read a few bits from that email:
At about 10.01 am I was, during my daily walk, crossing Nepean Highway … at the corner … with Mt Eliza Way and Wooralla Drive. I was midway across the first 3 lanes. Traffic had stopped at the red lights, when I heard a horn sounding to my right and a black SUV … hooned through, dodging a car already stopped … Had it not then changed lanes yet again … I would be dead.
… several drivers were in shock, as I believe was I. I kept walking—adrenaline can be a helpful thing—
and I think I would agree on that—
and when I returned home I did report the incident to the Mornington police … Unfortunately they really can’t do anything, as that intersection does not have any surveillance cameras.
My question is—what action needs to be taken to install … cameras at that intersection? There are often accidents there … the policeman I spoke with admitted it is a bad intersection.
I can certainly support that view. This is an intersection that has a large private school on one corner, a very busy state primary school on the other corner, and of course it is the intersection with the Nepean Highway.
It is a very busy stretch and there have been issues, including one involving a member of my own staff a number of years ago.
This is just another location in the Mornington electorate that desperately needs an investment in terms of road funding.
I have raised in this place frequently the issue of Uralla Road in Mount Martha; the issue of Forest Drive in Mount Martha; the lack of a school safety zone outside Balcombe Grammar School on the Nepean Highway; congestion on Bungower Road, the main access to Peninsula Link; and congestion on Mornington-Tyabb Road.
There are a significant number of roadworks and road safety measures needed in the Mornington electorate.
They are in some cases, I appreciate, big-ticket items and probably not appropriate to be raising in the context of a request in an adjournment debate, but the issue I raise is a modest amount of money, and I urge the minister to take action on that front.