Wednesday, 28 May 2025

Katamatite-Shepparton Road

Kim O’KEEFFE (Shepparton) (17:03): (1172) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action that I seek is for the minister to come and see the appalling works that have been done on repairing the Katamatite-Shepparton Road. This busy stretch of road is one of the worst in my electorate. It has massive potholes and a broken road surface. Ben Ladson, a local constituent and former councillor, posted a video yesterday, the day the works were done, and said the works are a disgrace and an absolutely unacceptable standard. Ben said that he has never seen such a poor attempt at road repairs in his life. When you view the footage it is actually hard to comprehend that this level of inadequate repairs is actually happening. It is an absolute disgrace. The minister, as part of her duty of care as Minister for Roads and Road Safety, needs to come and see firsthand the unacceptable, unsafe standard of the road repairs that are being done under her watch. You really do have to see it to believe it.

The $976 million for regional roads must prioritise the most unsafe and damaged roads and must ensure that the money is being spent on quality road repairs and road maintenance, not the disgraceful works and short-term patch-up jobs that we see here on the Katamatite-Shepparton Road, not poor, short-term fixes that continually need to be redone. The Department of Transport and Planning’s performance measures in the recent state budget show that the Allan Labor government is maintaining less than a third of road repairs it did in the past. Despite claiming spending record amounts on roads, Labor’s own budget papers show a shocking 93 per cent reduction in roads patching and a 14 per cent reduction on road resealing and rehabilitation. Not only are the works been done poorly, we have also had a reduction, which is astounding considering the increasing number of appalling and unsafe roads that are crumbling and full of potholes. There is a lot of catch-up, yet this government are spending less and nowhere near meeting the road maintenance needs. That is putting lives at risk.

My office is inundated with complaints about the appalling and unsafe condition of our roads, and this is only one of many roads across my electorate in urgent need of repair. I have also been contacted by a transport company who said that damage to their vehicles caused by the state of the roads is costing them thousands of dollars every single month. I jumped in a truck recently and experienced firsthand the amount of potholes it hit and the impact on the truck. It was shocking. I also asked the minister to do the same previously. It is crucial that the minister comes into the regions and sees the level of damage to our roads. Again I urge the minister to come and see the latest appalling road repairs done on the Katamatite-Shepparton Road.