Tuesday, 7 February 2023

 Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (15:53): I rise today in my members statement to bring to the house’s attention the appalling state of roads in regional Victoria, but most particularly of course in my electorate, which covers the Surf Coast shire, the Colac Otway shire and the Corangamite shire. Residents right across my region are writing to me on almost a daily basis with photographic evidence, stories of disaster and costs associated with the poor condition of Victorian roads. What we are seeing is that the money, the investment and the long-term commitment to providing safe, stable roadways have just been given up on by this government. Country people are tiring of the fact that they are listening to the news at night, and they are hearing figures of $70 billion, $80 billion or $100 billion being spent on railways in Melbourne and not one extra dollar being spent on country roads. We have heard this week that a 3-kilometre section of the Hamilton Highway across the northern part of my electorate is the biggest regional road repair job in the entire state for the year. That is laughable. There are literally hundreds of thousands of kilometres of roads that need to be fixed up right across rural and regional Victoria. People want to see the water drain from the road and they want to see the edges cleared, but most importantly they want safe roads for themselves, their families, their work and their farms.