Wednesday, 10 September 2025

 Bridget VALLENCE (Evelyn) (19:09): (1314) Coldstream residents, Coldstream fire brigade, the local shops and people across the Yarra Valley are still waiting for Killara Road and Maroondah Highway, Coldstream, to be upgraded. This is a vital road safety project for my community – indeed the entire Yarra Valley region – to duplicate Maroondah Highway, Coldstream, and make that dangerous intersection at Killara Road safer with traffic lights.

For around nine years I have been campaigning together with the community for this road project, and I will not ever stop doing so. The Victorian Liberals pledged traffic lights and worked with the former federal MP Tony Smith to secure $20 million in funding back in 2019 dedicated to this exact road project. So for six years the Andrews and Allan Labor government have sat on this funding, and frankly the excuse they have been peddling for years now, that it is still in the planning phase, is just utterly ridiculous. Coldstream, Yering and Gruyere residents, the Coldstream CFA and Gruyere CFA, fire brigades and local traders – in fact, people right across the Yarra Valley – deserve certainty from the Victorian government and its Department of Transport and Planning about the long-awaited Maroondah Highway, Coldstream, project and when it will finally emerge from that protracted planning phase into actual works to get this vital road safety project done. So the matter I raise is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek is for the minister to inform me of the date on which the project scope and construction schedule will be made public for my community, noting this was promised by the minister for the 2025 calendar year – that is right. On the parliamentary record, in response to me raising this issue last year in adjournment matter number 955, the minister stated that the government’s transport department was reviewing designs and promised that the project scope, updated construction schedule and temporary road work impacts would be shared with the community in 2025.

There are only 3½ months left in 2025. There is still no timeframe and construction schedule confirmed – it is a disgrace – despite Commonwealth funding being handed over six years ago. My community is desperate for information about the project – whether it has been approved for the works to start, whether there has been a tender done, whether there has been a contractor appointed, when community consultation will occur and basically when the Maroondah Highway, Coldstream, project will just be done. Ultimately, what our community demands is for the road project to actually be delivered and for it to be upgraded without further delay. Again, dare I say, it is only a Victorian Liberal government that will deliver this road project for Coldstream, and I invite the Labor government to prove me wrong on that. I will never give up campaigning for the Maroondah Highway and Killara Road, Coldstream, road safety project to be done.