Wednesday, 31 July 2024

 Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (19:01): (741) I have yet another matter for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek is for urgent attention with appropriate funding to be given to address the potholes and failing surfaces on the Eltham-Yarra Glen Road, centred mostly around Christmas Hills. The road between Yarra Glen and Alma Road at Watsons Creek stretches for about 12 kilometres. It is winding, with double lines for most of it. It is heavily treed, and there are many challenges known at the best of times for this road. There are constant ads about motorbike alerts because of the dangers of riders losing their lives, and there are often ads up there bringing people’s attention to that fact.

There is also a lot of traffic on this road. It is the link between Healesville, Yarra Glen and the Melba Highway, pretty well, with the ring-road and the Greensborough Highway, and the ring-road traffic goes to the airport. It is a very busy stretch of road. It has deteriorated rapidly over the last month or so. I have had so much contact about this section of road, and in fact at the moment it has overtaken the number of the complaints I have about the Melba Highway, which has come out as the worst road in the state. So momentarily the Eltham-Yarra Glen Road is right up there.

I had seen this road. Despite people having come in and spoken to me, I had actually seen some of the potholes being filled when it was raining heavily, and you could see that the tar mix was just spraying everywhere during the rain. I went to take photos at another time, and I met a young man, Metin, who came up and saw me, and he asked whether I popped a tyre. And I said no, I had not, but his wife had just damaged a rim of her tyre on her vehicle, and they were quoted $2500. This was a young couple with a four-month-old baby, so they were really quite distressed by that.

I was travelling on a Saturday night just after that, in the rain again, and I saw a tow truck with a car on the back at the spot of some of the worst potholes. I am sure, had the RACV survey been completed at the moment, this road would have been there. It really needs attention. There is not a lot of room for people to go because it is narrow, it is winding and it has double lines, so it is very difficult for people to avoid, and it is difficult at night to see some of those potholes.

The funding for resurfacing and resealing contracts for Victorian roads in the 2023–24 financial period has dropped dramatically, and the shadow minister has found out through questions on notice in this place that $37.6 million was spent across the state compared to $201.4 million in the previous year. That is a pretty damning statistic, and the government need to lift that and certainly fix this road.