VicRoads
Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (10:13): Imagine driving on the road for three weeks with a licence that has not expired, totally unaware that your licence has been cancelled by VicRoads without them notifying you. Truck driver and freight business owner William Neale from South-West Coast recently had his licence downgraded from a heavy vehicle licence to an ordinary car licence – and get this, he was not even told. He drives a truck, not a car. On 16 February William received a letter from VicRoads that was dated 10 February. The letter stated that from 27 January his truck licence was suspended. Yes, you heard me right: the suspension occurred 20 days prior to William receiving the VicRoads letter and two weeks prior to the letter even being written. William has now suffered a loss of income due to VicRoads’ incompetence, and he has been unable to run his business and work as a truck driver.
This shows, plain and simple, how Labor have allowed the mismanagement of VicRoads, which they partially privatised to pay back their debt. Imagine the risk to his business if he had had an accident – his insurance would not have covered him, and he would have lost everything. The privatisation of VicRoads has created nothing but grief for William and placed William in a position where for three weeks he was unknowingly unlicensed and uninsured. That is not good enough, and it is time Labor got serious about fixing the mess at VicRoads before more true-blue truckies have their lives turned upside down by bureaucracy gone mad.