Tuesday, 9 December 2025

 Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (17:06): (1481) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek is for the minister to provide an explanation for the very, very poor roadworks that have been occurring in my electorate, most specifically this week with the Sale to Traralgon duplication at Kilmany. Literally only a year ago the duplication was opened, and the railway bridge at Kilmany has been part of that. This week there were contractors there tearing up the road, digging it up to replace a section. This has happened time and time and time again, particularly on this project, the Sale to Traralgon duplication. Indeed I previously raised concerns with the then Minister for Transport Infrastructure just after the project had finished on the Flynn section, when within 12 or 18 months after that opening, there were probably a dozen 50- to 100-metre stretches of patching that had been done. When I raised it with the previous minister, he acknowledged that it was an issue and that contractors were still examining whether there were any local environmental factors that may have led to that. Well, this has been a freeway or a highway for about 130 years, so if there were any local environmental factors the government and the contractors should have known what they were. This section now at Kilmany is just ridiculous. How we can be having to patch a brand new stretch of road less than 12 months after it was completed is beyond me.

This is the frustration of Victorians right around the state: the poor quality of works that are done and the poor quality of repairs that are done that are regularly then having to be repatched. It is an issue of accountability, and we need both the minister to be accountable and the Department of Transport and Planning to be accountable. We need the contractors to be accountable, but I am conscious often that the contractors are doing what they are told with the specifications they are given. People are frustrated about this. Our roads are in such an appalling state, and then we have them patched or a new section built and not actually addressed properly and they are breaking up again within 12 months on a brand new section. It is simply not acceptable. The minister should explain what has gone on and explain to taxpayers whether this is being rectified by the contractors or whether it is coming back to taxpayers again, because it is not good enough and it needs to be addressed.