Sunday 26 October 2025

The Coalition has called upon the Minister for Transport, Catherine King, to extend Monday’s deadline for submissions on dropping road speed limits.

Shadow Minister for Regional Development Dr Anne Webster MP highlighted that of the current consultations, none have been less than 40 days but this one has only been 28 days.

“The Albanese Labor Government’s proposal could see the default speed limit in regional Australia drop from 100 kilometres per hour to as low as 70 kilometres an hour,” Dr Webster said.

“A rushed consultation with no press release from the Minister encouraging people to participate – and the Government’s silence on this travesty since I first raised it – makes this look like a Clayton’s consultation. The Government appears to want to bring regional Australia to a grinding halt.”

The Coalition has called out the Albanese Labor Government’s plan to slash speed limits on rural roads in poor condition as an outrageous, lazy solution to a serious issue facing cars and trucks across the country.

Labor Minister Catherine King is proposing reducing speed limits on regional roads, in response to the worsening national road toll under her government.

This ‘solution’ will only halt regional productivity and not address one of the root causes of the problem - Labor’s abysmal cuts to road funding.

“Across Victoria poor road conditions remain one of the most prominent issues that locals continue to face, with plenty of roads in desperate need of repair,” Dr Webster said.

“I can say both as Member for Mallee but also as Shadow Minister for Local Government, having visited Western Australian regional shires last week, councils and shires would love to upgrade or repair their roads, but they simply cannot afford to do so due to reduced funding from the state and Federal Labor Governments. 

“It seems for the Albanese Labor Government that it is ‘out of sight, out of mind’.  Seventy seven per cent of roads are managed by local governments and the simple solution for Labor is to slow the default speed limit by 30 per cent.’

“Councils love the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure program established by the Coalition in 2021/22. It gave untied, uncontested funding to every shire to spend where they saw fit to bring local roads up to a safe standard. However, Labor has axed the program which finishes in 8 months’ time.”

“The solution to help make our rural roads safe is to maintain, upgrade and improve the roads themselves, not to slow down regional productivity.”

Dr Webster urged transport operators, small businesses, farmers and councils to make submissions to the Government’s consultation on Monday’s 27 October closing date (today) about how their communities would be impacted by speed limit reductions on rural, regional and remote Australian roads.

As parliamentarians return to Canberra for the coming sitting fortnight, the Coalition is calling on the Government to extend the deadline for submissions by at least a further fortnight.

To make a submission, go to the ‘Have your Say’ section of the infrastructure.gov.au website (https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/have-your-say/regulatory-impact-analysis-reduce-open-road-default-speed-limit).

Dr Webster urged people who have heard about this consultation too late to still make a submission at the Infrastructure Department link, and to copy their submission to her at anne.webster.mp@aph.gov.au so she can ensure the Minister takes the submission into consideration.

“Regional Australia’s economy is on the line here. Government has an obligation to protect the lives of every Australian, so they should get on with it and fund rural roads.” Dr Webster said.

”As I said Thursday week ago, How about they just fix the bloody roads?”