Mr HOLLIS (9:49 AM) —Transport is vital to Australia. It has long concerned me that we do not have a national transport strategy in Australia and that our transport needs are approached very much on an ad hoc basis. This is not helped by the federal system in Australia. Each state seems to have its own priorities, and nothing emphasises this more than the different rail gauges that existed in the early days. It has taken years of effort and millions of dollars to get a somewhat uniform approach to rail, and the jealousies of the states in the early days have cost producers in this country millions of dollars. I am not one of those who argue for a road/rail approach—an either/or process. We need an integrated approach encompassing both road and rail, and implicit in this is that rail must receive proper funding and not be expected to compete against roads, as it were, with one hand tied behind its back.

Some years ago the federal government accepted responsibility for some funding under the national highway program, but unless you are on that highway you are disadvantaged in regard to road. The Princes Highway linking Sydney to Melbourne along the South Coast should be declared a road of national importance. Just yesterday, the Prime Minister put a stop to that by saying that such a road would not receive federal funding, so deaths will continue on that road. Local producers will be disadvantaged, while the South Coast and Illawarra again miss out. You will appreciate, Mr Deputy Speaker Nehl, because of your campaign regarding North Coast roads, that there are more deaths per kilometre on the Princes Highway than there are on the Hume Highway. So there is absolutely no doubt that good roads save lives.

Another part of my integrated plan is to have ports linked to the hinterland. Thus I have argued for many years for a replacement road to Macquarie Pass so that the port of Kembla can reach its full potential as an export development port to complement the work that the Port Kembla Corporation has achieved. I call on the Prime Minister and, indeed, the Deputy Prime Minister with his special responsibilities, to adequately fund the Princes Highway and to declare it a road of national importance.

The whole Princes Highway network should be a road of national importance. It is good enough for the Sydney to Brisbane route to have two major roads and a railway. On the South Coast, the railway stops at Bomaderry. The only thing we have south of Bomaderry is a narrow deathtrap of a road. It should be adequately funded, because there is no other transport network there. The rail stops at Bomaderry and then you go onto the Princes Highway. I was on the Princes Highway last weekend. It is a narrow, dangerous deathtrap of a road. The statistics show that there are more deaths per kilometre on the Princes Highway than on the Hume Highway. (Time expired)