YAPA media release: 7 September 2011
MEDIA RELEASE
The peak organisation representing NSW young people and the services that support disadvantaged youth has once again expressed its utter disappointment that the Minister for Roads has failed to provide funding to ease the stress on struggling families & young people wanting to become safe road users.
Reynato Reodica, Chief Executive of stateʼs peak youth affairs body, the Youth Action & Policy Association NSW (YAPA), said “Yet again, the NSW Government has refused to invest in quality hands-on training for young drivers, whilst continuing to mandate an unnecessarily high number of learner hours and passing the costs of these hours onto families already straining to find the time and money to support the learning of their children.”
Yesterdayʼs budget media release from the NSW Minister for Roads and Ports, Duncan Gay, had boasted about a record $5.4 billion roads budget, yet the announcement did not allocate a single cent to fund initiatives to provide hands-on tuition to young people to become safe drivers, including the oneday training course included in the coalitionʼs election platform.
Mr Reodica said this was particularly disappointing after the outgoing government had already allocated $15.6 million over three years for a scheme that should have commenced on 1 July 2011. That scheme would have made 6,000 disadvantaged young people safer drivers through access to 10 hours of free instruction, as well as making life easier for each of them and their lowincome families. However, this was halted by the RTA and the new government and the $15.6 million has now disappeared into record spending that has bypassed the needs of this group.
Mr Reodica said struggling families with children requiring licenses would be shattered by the new governmentʼs actions. “For many of these young people and their families, a license means access to employment and education, young people being able to exercise their caring responsibilities for their loved ones, and a way of breaking through the social isolation in rural and regional NSW. But the current system has proven to be too high a road block that has stopped them from accessing these important things.”
The importance of a license was highlighted on the YAPA “Lose 120 hours for Learners” Facebook page, with comments when the original package was announced that included:
"this is the best news - I read the press release to my entire class who started screaming and running out of the rooms shouting the hours were reduced resulting in mass excitement lol this is great news [sic]".
Whilst Mr Reodica saw some value in the re-announced $1 million over four years allocated to the Sydney-based Youth and Road Trauma Forum, he questioned whether this program would address the barriers faced by families.
“The government has let down the young people of NSW, especially those who are most in need of a fairer system, whose families canʼt afford comprehensive car insurance in order to get relief from the excessive requirements of the current scheme or those in rural and regional NSW.”
Mr Reodica recommends that the OʼFarrell government to take another look at the value of the previous governmentʼs package, which went a long way towards addressing the failures of the system created by the previous government in recognising the needs of disadvantaged young people and their families.
He further urged the government to fund real changes that are long overdue in balancing the need for road safety with the need for young people to get mobile and therefore access education, employment and other vitally important opportunities.
Media contact
Reynato Reodica
0416 929 252
Background:
The previous governmentʼs $15.6 million scheme was designed to benefit 100,000 learner drivers each and included:
- “A $3.6 million, three year fund to provide 10 free one hour professional driving lessons for up to 6,000 disadvantaged learner drivers; and
- A $1.2 million injection to organisations that make cars or supervisors available to disadvantaged learner drivers – tripling the current funding of $400,000 per year.
- An across the board reduction in minimum log book hours for learner drivers from 120 hours to 100 hours;
- A further 20 hour discount for learners who get 10 hours of professional instruction – meaning they only have to do 80 log book hours;”
(Source: Introducing a Fairer System for Learner Drivers – 12/02/11)
The package was a significant backflip by the previous government, after years of work by YAPA and other groups to show how their desire for road safety was blinding them from the detrimental effects of their policies on young people and families in other aspects of their lives.
