Tuesday, 30 April 2024

North-Eastern Metropolitan Region

Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:02): (804) It was my great pleasure in my electorate in Ringwood to be at Antonio Park Primary School yesterday. While I was at the school having a great look around – and I give my thanks to Principal Jones and Assistant Principal Minetti, who I met as well for the first time – a number of issues came to my attention and were raised by the school. In particular there were two specific issues, and I would like to raise those today for the attention of the Minister for Roads and Road Safety. The first issue relates to a road which abuts the school, Deep Creek Road. At the moment the speed limit on Deep Creek Road is 60 kilometres an hour. It is one of the very few schools, if there are any in this state in fact other than this school, that has a 60-kilometre zone abutting the school. So I ask the minister to immediately change that to a 40-‍kilometre zone. That does not seem to me to be too much to ask. There is a second thing I would ask: on Whitehorse Road for many, many years the children have had to cross eight lanes of traffic. What is needed there is a pedestrian overpass. It would avoid accidents. There have been many accidents, including one recently. I ask the minister to give that urgent attention.