Mr ALISTER HENSKENS (Wahroonga) (16:47): Recently I was kindly invited to St Ives to attend the twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the Rotary Youth Driver Awareness [RYDA] program, which provides important road safety education. The program operates at different locations around New South Wales, other Australian States and New Zealand. The RYDA training facility opposite the St Ives Showground, adjacent to my electorate, has now operated since the establishment of RYDA. RYDA began in 2000 after a tragic car accident in the Hills District that took the lives of four teenage boys on Old Northern Road in Dural. The accident occurred at a bend in the road when the car, which was being driven by a 17-year-old who had only held his provisional licence for three weeks, veered onto the wrong side of the road and collided with a four-wheel drive. Police estimated that the car was being driven at 110 kilometres per hour in a 60‑kilometre‑per‑hour zone.

Following the accident, and shocked by the loss of four young lives, the Hills Rotary club in district 9680 established and sponsored a youth driver awareness program, now known as RYDA. A public meeting was held one month after the accident at which local Rotary clubs, the Salvation Army, the Roads and Traffic Authority, local police, councils, schools, businesses, road safety officers and community groups were present. A committee was formed to develop a program suitable for rollout in Sydney. The curriculum and session plans were constructed in collaboration with the then Department of Education and Training, the Department of Transport, the police department, the Department of Health and the Department of Fair Trading.

The six‑session, one‑day program under the banner "Rotary Youth Driver Awareness" commenced at the beginning of 2001 at the Honda Australia Roadcraft Training site in St Ives, Sydney. Approximately 1,200 year 11 students from six schools in the Hills area attended the program in its inaugural year. Four years later, it became evident that external funding would be needed to bring on staff to ensure that RYDA was best practice and to grow its availability. In collaboration with the Rotary District 9680 committee—an independent not‑for‑profit organisation—Road Safety Education Limited was established. The first corporate sponsor, BOC, came on board, and was then followed by other sponsors. The RYDA program could then expand further throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Now, 25 years later, hundreds of thousands of students—around three-quarters of a million—have participated in the RYDA program across Australia and New Zealand. When I recently attended RYDA's twenty‑fifth birthday celebration, I met a representative of BOC, which is still a major sponsor 25 years later. Also in attendance was Terry Birss, who was one of the founding Rotarians and the first CEO of the program. I had a long conversation with the current CEO, Maria Lovelock, and John Elliott, who is the head of program delivery with a long history of working in education. Both Maria and John are current Rotarians. Those conversations let me know that the course the students undertake includes learning about issues like stopping distances, peer pressure and crash investigation, with presenters including police officers, and other experts.

On the day I attended, students from the Abbotsleigh school for girls in my electorate were taking the course. I was told that the course is based upon leading international research and is delivered across Sydney and New South Wales as well as interstate. The reach of this program could be far greater if more funding were available. The course is heavily subsidised, with the balance of the cost to students and the cost of operating the course being met by the sponsors. At this time, RYDA is restricted from being able to travel to the regions due to funding constraints because delivery of the program in the regions is more expensive than in metropolitan areas. This is despite our regional communities having a higher rate of car crash fatalities.

Despite being home to only about one‑third of the State's population, regional New South Wales accounts for approximately two‑thirds of all road deaths. When there is a clear answer to helping to prevent road deaths through education programs like RYDA, why should they be devoid of critical funding? On a per capita basis and an absolute basis, the Queensland and New Zealand governments contribute more funding to the delivery of the program than does New South Wales. Road safety should be a bipartisan issue. I call on the Minns Labor Government to consider substantially increasing the funding for this incredibly successful road safety program to enable RYDA to expand its reach and educate our young people and ultimately save more lives.