Tuesday, 7 May 2024

Rural and regional roads

Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (19:05): (643) My adjournment tonight is to the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action that I am seeking is for the minister to address this increasing road condition crisis we have in the state. In today’s budget it was very alarming to see that the roads maintenance budget is 16 per cent lower than what it was in 2020. In my electorate – and I am sure others who represent other electorates around the state, particularly in rural areas or peri-urban areas, must notice it – the condition of our roads is just getting gradually worse all the time, to the stage that they are nearly at crisis level and beyond repair. I have got truck drivers and bus drivers who have driven our roads for 20, 30 years coming into my electorate office saying they have never seen our roads so bad. We were hoping that today we would get a little bit of respite and that we would have a massive funding increase that would start to set us on the right path to recovery, but instead we have a figure allocated for road maintenance that is still 16 per cent below the 2020 level. Whether a Treasurer’s advance is required or whether there is some hidden money there somewhere, I call on the roads minister to please take action and fix this crisis before it gets any worse.