Thursday, 23 June 2022

Western Highway

Ms STALEY (Ripon) (09:41): Our country roads are crumbling and unsafe, and Labor has no solutions. When I talk about the Western Highway, as I did in this place last sitting week, I can now add—already we have talked about how Trawalla is down to 60 kilometres an hour—that there is now a major pothole outbound at Beaufort. Gordon is down to 40 kilometres an hour, as is Burrumbeet—

A member interjected.

Ms STALEY: On both. And this is the Western Highway. It is not some small, local government road, it is the Western Highway. I am repeatedly contacted, in my office, by people who are really worried that when they drive on this unsafe and potholed road they are going to do a rim on their wheel or they are going to hurt their car in some way, and because the government’s solution to this is to put the signs up so they cannot be sued, people will be out of pocket. People are already paying very, very high petrol prices, facing high inflation, and on top of this the government’s solution for when drivers get their cars damaged on a road the government is not able to maintain is to say, ‘Well, there’s nothing to do here. Don’t look at us, we’ve got no responsibility’. It is unacceptable to country people that this government has failed so comprehensively to upgrade and maintain the Western Highway, the major road in western Victoria.