Ms O'CONNOR - Thank you. On page 280 in budget paper 2 volume 1, it says the data is not available for the number of serious casualties from road crashes in the years 2019-20 and 2020-21, but the Transport Services website does report this data and in 2019-20 there were 290 serious casualties from road crashes and in 2020-21, 246 casualties. The Transport Service's website reports this data but it is not available in the Budget, although the Transport Service's website has made public this data for any number of years. Why does the Budget say this data is not available?
Mr FERGUSON - This is a new data line. I understand that this is part of the changes the department has been recommending for output performance information. I'm pretty sure this is a new measure in the budget papers which might indicate why, given it is not necessarily the same measure as you refer to on the website, but I readily acknowledge that. I might withdraw that comment.
Ms O'CONNOR - It actually is the same dataset - serious casualties, serious injuries.
Mr FERGUSON - And requiring hospitalisation, but it is a new measure for the budget papers and it may be a convention, I do not know, but I will ask the secretary if there is anything to add. It may be convention that has not previously been a target where it has been introduced to the performance information page. Perhaps that is why we have an NA there.
Ms O'CONNOR - You do in the following two years. The numbers are consistent with the previous two.
Mr FERGUSON - Yes, but they're targets rather than actuals.
Dr EVANS - If you go to the footnote it refers to this being a new performance measure. I suspect it is down as 'not applicable' simply because we haven't reported on it in previous years. It wouldn't mean that we didn't have the data.
Mr FERGUSON - We could have added it in and perhaps we should have, but I take the point if it is a criticism. That would be my understanding. It may be nothing other than a convention that a new measure doesn't have old actuals.
CHAIR - Please put your previous questions in writing, Ms O'Connor, thank you.
Ms O'CONNOR - Thanks for the prompt, Chair.