Media Release | 2 October 2026
Hon. Julie Freeman MLC
Shadow Minister for Road Safety
Shadow Minister for Road Safety Hon Julie Freeman MLC has expressed grave concern that, in the first week of October, Western Australia’s 2026 road toll is on track to be the worst result in over a decade.
With three further fatalities overnight, two in Boddington and one in Port Hedland, 164 people have now lost their lives on WA roads, twenty more than this time last year.
“We still have almost three months of the year to go. Many Western Australians know someone who has been killed or seriously injured on our roads. That should not be normal, and it should not be accepted.”
Ms Freeman said regional Western Australians continue to bear the brunt, with 93 of this year’s 164 deaths occurring on regional roads, despite only around one in five Western Australians living outside Perth. That’s 57 per cent of the toll in the regions.
Ms Freeman said recent announcements from Labor Road Safety Minister, including expanded high school road safety education, roadside testing for cocaine and two new camera trailers for Bunbury, were welcome but was unlikely to have any meaningful impact on the road toll.
“I support each of these measures. But cocaine testing simply brings WA into line with most other states, and two cameras for Bunbury is not a strategy for a state of this size. This is tinkering at the edges of a growing crisis.”
National Road Safety Data Hub figures show WA has the worst per capita road fatality rate of any state in Australia.
Ms Freeman said that, given the resources of the Road Trauma Trust Account and the Cook Labor Government’s much-lauded budget surpluses, the community would rightly expect WA’s roads to be some of the safest in the country.
“The new Minister has brought no new ideas and no new direction. It is time for an urgent and meaningful review of the Government’s approach, and an urgent investigation of what is working in other jurisdictions.”
ENDS
