Wednesday, 29 October 2025

 Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (10:13): I am speaking today on the 2024–25 budget estimates report which was tabled in October last year by the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee. I am referring to chapter 6 on the Department of Transport and Planning; 6.6 specifically is on roads and road safety, and road maintenance and road safety fall under that. When I reviewed the report and I looked at the objectives for the coming year, out of the five objectives that are listed there is actually nothing about good road management and good road surfaces. That provides an insight for me about why our roads are so bad. The government does not have them as a priority. They are focused on transport services being safe, a quality built environment, effective management of land assets – well, I suppose that is the roads – and prosperous and connected communities, but there is nothing that specifically talks about our roads and works on those roads which need to be done. I would like to say ‘outstanding’, but they are not outstanding, if you know what I mean.

For too long we have heard that the condition of our roads is related to the floods. However, so many road issues in my electorate are so not related to the floods; they are related more to neglect. The government brags consistently about road investments. Every year at this time of the year we have the better roads blitz. It has been the same press release each October for six years, and it is just spin.

We have so many roads that are failing. I want to highlight a couple of the spots. The wire rope barriers between Molesworth and Yea – it is about 8 or 9 kilometres – have dings in 27 spots, and some of those are very large dings. It might be 10 metres or so where the barriers themselves have been knocked down, never been replaced and are in just terrible condition. Our road surfaces are failing – we have potholes and the surfaces are crumbling. The Buxton Progress Association the other day were complaining to me about the Maroondah Highway in Buxton. There is a spot in Ancona and Maindample on the Maroondah Highway between Bonnie Doon and Mansfield which is in appalling condition. The Goulburn Valley Highway at Molesworth, in downtown Molesworth, is dreadful. The Heidelberg-Kinglake Road, just south of Kinglake, is also in a terrible state. The Melba Highway has potholes opening up. The government must act to make a difference here.

It is not just me and adults who are saying that. I have a whole bunch of letters from children from the Mansfield Steiner School who visited Parliament recently, and they all wrote to me as a result. One thing that they would kindly ask for is filling in the potholes. Here is somebody else that is saying their gratitude for getting some work done and trying to get the potholes filled. Somebody else asked: can you please fix the potholes so the roads can be more safe? Another said, ‘I want to tell you that I am grateful for some pot holes being fixed’ because it is safer to drive.

Something that other kids raised was the number of dead animals on the roads, which now are no longer moved or pushed off to the side of the roads. Here we have one child from the school who said:

I would like to request road kill being cleaned up because having dead animals lying on the road isn’t good.

Another student from Jamieson said there are so many dead animals that they and their friend had started to count them. They counted 113 dead animals on the way to school. Another student said:

It’s not very pleasant to see dead animals. Perhaps we could have virtual fences or under-road tunnels. If they still got hit by cars it would be much better if you could move the dead animals.

All of these kids know that potholes exist. They know that there is neglect of the roadsides. We have dead animals littering so many roads in my electorate. It is really just not good enough.

Not only do we have dead animals everywhere but we have illegal rubbish dumping. I know the government are aware of it. In fact I raised an adjournment matter, and I did get a response from the minister to say that they are aware of rubbish dumping across the state, including the Melba Highway, Donnybrook Road, Healesville-Koo Wee Rup Road and the Goulburn Valley Highway, which I had raised. When rubbish is deemed a hazard, it is assessed as a high priority and removed accordingly. Clearly the rubbish that is dumped in my electorate, because it is to the side of the road, is not a hazard. It has been there all year at least, and it is decomposing. What is also happening is that when you have the wild weather it spreads. We have plastics and all sorts of things going into our creeks and waterways, and that is not good.