‘Absurd’: Government ‘refuses to rule out’ lower speed limits, narrower roads to cut carbon emissions
The federal government has “refused to rule out” setting speed limits based on carbon emissions - after a proposal to make rural roads 70km/hr triggered uproar.
The federal government has “refused to rule out” setting speed limits and even road widths based on carbon emissions during a heated appearance in Senate Estimates.
Appearing before the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee on Monday, Infrastructure Minister Anthony Chisholm and Infrastructure Department Secretary Jim Betts were grilled by Nationals Senator Matt Canavan over a recently scrapped proposal to lower speed limits on rural roads from 100 to 70 kilometres per hour.
“Can the government rule out ever using lower carbon emissions as a justification to set speed limits anywhere in the country?” Mr Canavan asked.
“That would obviously be a matter for state ministers, but what I know from the … meeting is that no further work is being undertaken on these open default speed limits,” Mr Chisholm said.
Mr Canavan pressed, “My question is will the government rule out, permanently, ever using lower carbon emissions as a justification to lower Australian speed limits?”
Mr Chisholm said it was “not my job to be the rule-in, rule-out guy, Senator Canavan, that would be a matter for [Transport Minister Catherine King]”.
“But as has been on the record, it is the state and territory ministers that are responsible for speed limits, I don’t imagine they’re going to give that up, so that would be a matter for them,” he said.
Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie said the answer suggested the Minister had “refused to rule out” the possibility.
“It’s an open question then,” Mr Canavan said. “If you’re pursuing net zero, you could be driving 50 everywhere you go soon.”
Mr Canavan’s line of questioning was sparked by a recent consultation paper from the department on reducing the 100km/h default speed limit on rural roads.
The federal government abandoned that proposal last week after the “blanket approach” was rejected by state and territory ministers.
Speed limits are set by state and territory governments, but are based on the Australian Road Rules (ARR), overseen by the National Transport Commission (NTC), to provide consistency across jurisdictions.
Under the ARR, the default speed limits are 50km/h in built-up areas and 100km/h outside built-up areas — with a longstanding push to reduce the latter speed limit for safety reasons.
Mr Canavan previously said he was open to considering ways to reduce road fatalities — but argued the government’s discussion paper made it “clear” that “they are not just considering safety issues”.
He blasted the September regulatory impact analysis paper’s inclusion of four pages discussing the benefits of lowering speed limits to reduce carbon emissions.
“There is evidence to suggest that increased speed can increase fuel consumption and therefore increase CO2 emissions,” the document, authored by consulting firm ACIL Allen, states.
“Vehicle speeds have a major impact on fuel efficiencies, with most vehicles operating at their optimal efficiency at moderate speeds. At high speeds, above 60mph (96.6km/h), fuel efficiency decreases due to increased air resistance, while at lower speeds, features such as lower speed limits, higher intersection density were associated with lower efficiencies.
“The Australian government’s Green Vehicle Guide notes that a car can use up to 25 per cent more fuel driving at 100km/h than it would driving at 90km/h.”
Earlier in the hearing, department officials downplayed the inclusion of the carbon emissions reduction section in the regulatory impact analysis paper.
“Would reducing speed limits lower carbon emissions?” Mr Canavan asked.
“I don’t know the answer to that, Senator,” Deputy Secretary Jessica Hall said. “It’s not the reason for the regulatory impact assessment. The reason … was purely to look at saving lives. The Office of Impact Analysis requires a number of things to be assessed in accordance with its standard [methodology].”
Mr Canavan said, “This the problem with net zero, it’s impacting everything now including how fast we can drive.”
In a heated exchange, Mr Canavan then accused Mr Betts of “verballing” him.
“So it was something you had to assess?” Ms McKenzie asked.
“Correct, and if Senator Canavan’s intuition was right, that actually slowing speeds …” Mr Betts began.
“Secretary, do not verbal me,” Mr Canavan said. “It’s not my intuition. I’m quoting from your document. I think this is absurd, just to be clear … I haven’t made any claims today, except that it’s absolutely absurd to set speed limits based on trying to change the temperature of the globe.”
“We’re not changing speed limits, and we’re not doing it based on carbon emissions,” Mr Betts said.
Also in the hearing, Mr Canavan suggested including carbon emissions in cost-benefit calculations could result in fewer multi-lane highways being built.
“For example, you might decide building this highway to four lanes has higher carbon emissions, so maybe we’ll just go two lanes?” he said.
“Correct,” Mr Betts said.
“But similarly you might say going for four lanes has greater safety impacts.”
Mr Canavan said, “Yes and they’d already be factored in, presumably, but now inserting the embodied carbon emission calculation potentially means we’ll have fewer ... two-way split highways in the country, because it will skew the analysis to just having narrower roads.”
“I would just emphasise cost-benefit analysis is not a decision-maker in itself, it’s an input to enable decision-makers to understand cost and benefit trade-offs,” Mr Betts said.
“If you’re serious about looking at the costs and benefits of any individual infrastructure proposition, then you’d want to make sure that analysis is as comprehensive as possible, and to ignore carbon emissions would be to fall short of achieving that.”
