Tuesday, 22 March 2022

Lowan electorate roads

Ms KEALY (Lowan) (12:38): I would like to extend an invitation to the Minister for Roads and Road Safety and the shadow minister for roads to join me in my electorate of Lowan to personally inspect and experience the dangerous condition of our roads. In this year’s budget alone the state Labor government cut the road asset management budget by 25 per cent, and performance measures for road surface quality were also revised down.

Locals are seeing the impact of Labor’s complete neglect of our country roads. Jason Bendeich of Hamilton has written to the minister for roads on many occasions to highlight some of the more treacherous roads in our region, including the Hamilton–Penshurst road, particularly around Tarrington, Dunkeld-Cavendish Road and the Glenelg Highway, particularly near Muntham. This section of road near Muntham has recently been fixed. However, it has already fallen apart and there is no accountability when it comes to terrible workmanship on our roads. People are now saying they do not feel safe driving that section of road unless they are in a four-wheel drive. Darren Scott has been a fierce advocate for fixing roads around Rupanyup, and as a CFA volunteer, he has seen firsthand the heartbreaking and tragic outcomes of having unsafe roads. This road needs to be fixed.

The Wimmera Highway has had some roadworks done, which is fabulous, but you come to the end of the section that has been repaired and there are massive undulations and potholes and crumbling edges again. Many locals in the Minyip area have flagged the terrible condition of the Donald–Minyip road, which is now permanently reduced to 80 kilometres per hour. In this budget I ask the government to give country Victoria its fair share to finally fix our country roads and make our roads safe.