Tuesday, 15 August 2023

 Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (19:05): (283) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety. There is an old saying ‘Walk a mile in my shoes’, which is about understanding someone’s issues better, and I would ask the minister to drive some kilometres on the roads in my electorate so she can see how bad they are. I do not actually know where I should start, but I have some examples of the roads that I would like her to take so she can see how bad they are, because in my electorate we have some major potholes and some major broken sections of road paving that are starting to have birthdays because they have been there so long. The one that featured in the Herald Sun story the other day on the Leitchville-Kerang Road that someone wrote some obscenities on was one I visited a few weeks ago. I actually took a birthday cake, stood there and had a photo taken, because it is 12 months since that major defect in the road developed and it is still there.

But the one I really want the minister to go on is the Loddon Valley Highway to particularly look at the section between the Appin South turn-off and the Macorna turn-off. That particular series of potholes, major bumps and broken bitumen is having its fourth birthday. It will be starting school soon, it is that long since that bit of road was damaged. It has had speed restriction signs on it for all that time, back to 40 kilometres. The Loddon Valley Highway is the major through road from Swan Hill to Kerang and through to Bendigo. It has a lot of truck traffic coming through to Melbourne, and that particular section of road is extremely dangerous. As I said, it has had its fourth birthday and will be starting school soon.

Dean Turvey, who is one of the local constituents there, contacted me recently concerned about that bit of road, but he actually thought he had a major breakthrough. VicRoads responded to one of his inquiries saying that they would have a work crew there to fix that section of road next week. Unfortunately, several weeks later, VicRoads have still not shown up to do anything about that particular road. So, as I said, I would like the minister to come to my electorate and drive some kilometres with me and I will point out the really bad sections of road that desperately need work done on them so they can make them safer, because there is a very good saying that has been around for a long time: ‘If you fix country roads, you save country lives.’ I want to make sure that happens in my electorate and we do not have fatalities because of the poor condition of the roads.