Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (17:14): (1350) The adjournment debate I have this evening is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek is for the immediate repair of copious dangerous potholes on the Princes Highway west of Geelong all the way through to Colac. This road has become a nightmare over recent weeks with the rain that luckily has finally come to western Victoria. I was reminded of this this afternoon when I had two visits from local schoolchildren in my electorate – from St Mary’s in Colac. It was interesting. I know many people in this place have visitors from their local school communities, but I challenge anyone else to have had this. I think I had eight questions from the first cohort and about 10 questions from the second cohort, and every single one of the grade 6s and grade 5s from this group raised roads as the single most important issue and asked me, on behalf of their mums and dads, to push hard to get the road surfaces repaired in our electorate. Quite frankly, when young students are travelling – and many of these kids take buses every day to and from school on country roads – even they are fearful and worried about the state and condition of the roads. They know that they cause accidents. They know that mum and dad, if they hit a pothole, break a rim or burst a tyre, have all sorts of grief. Many of these children will have families that have horse floats and trailers and other contraptions on the backs of their cars. From the back seats of the car, they know that these things are at risk and in danger, and that puts the whole family, the whole car and others – neighbours and communities – at risk.
The road surfacing across Polwarth, as a general rule, is nothing short of a disgrace. This week I also hosted the various south-west council groups – Corangamite shire, Moyne and others – who form the greater area that makes up south-west Victoria, and each one of those delegates, whether it was Mayor Makin from Corangamite or another representative, raised the need for increased road funding. We heard at the lunch break today from the SouthWest Victoria Alliance, when the mayor of Warrnambool Ben Blain again raised the need to see roads on the agenda as a crucial part of ongoing prosperity and need in rural and regional Victoria, and south-west Victoria is by no means an exception. We heard from one of the businesspeople that were speaking to the group. His road repair costs for his modest-sized business are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for extra damage to cars, trucks, tyres and so on. The roads in western Victoria are in crisis. Minister, I seek your action to at least get the Princes Highway west of Geelong repaired.