Tuesday, 12 August 2025

 Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (19:06): (1243) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek is for the minister to do something to fix the South Gippsland Highway, particularly the section between Leongatha and Korumburra. Local residents are fed up with the state of the South Gippy highway, frankly, all the way from Dandenong to Sale. But this area between Korumburra and Leongatha has recently had additional speed reduction signs implemented. It is supposed to be – it used to be – 100 kilometres an hour in this area. It is 13 ‍k’s between Korumburra and Leongatha, and there have been temporary signs at the Leongatha end for probably a couple of years now warning of poor road surface ahead. In the last couple of months, though, permanent 80-kilometre signs have gone up with the addition of the road hazard signs. This is despite the fact that in recent weeks only one lane has actually been resealed. But it is that lane that has got the signs up with an 80-k speed reduction and road hazard warnings. What is going on? The government has now extended that 80-k zone for a number of kilometres between Leongatha and Korumburra. It now comes out from the Korumburra side quite a while – it has done for maybe two years now – but it is virtually reduced for that entire 13 k’s now. There is only a small section in the middle where it is still 100. It seems to be creeping out, and it is not because of the safety issues at one end. Certainly there have been some fatalities on this stretch of road in the last couple of years, and that is a concern, but the fact that we have now got permanent 80-k signs with a road hazard sign because the road surface is in such poor condition is frankly a disgrace.

The government likes to talk about record road funding, but we are not seeing it on our roads. Indeed the budget papers show that there is a 93 per cent reduction in the amount of road patching that will be done in this year’s budget and a 14 per cent reduction in the rehabilitation and road resurfacing that will be done. Perhaps that is why only one half of the road at the Leongatha end of the South Gippy highway has actually been resealed recently. The government just needs to fix this. This is getting frustrating for commuters and for people who are travelling on the South Gippy highway, whether they are locals or whether they are tourists going to Wilsons Prom. We have got a big increase in traffic because the Pakenham saleyard is closed, so there is more saleyard traffic going to Victorian Livestock Exchange at Koonwarra. We are going to have decommissioning of the oil and gas facilities through Barry Beach. We have got the prospect of offshore wind through Barry Beach. All of this is going to mean new and more traffic on the South Gippy highway. Please, Minister, actually fix this section of road.