Tuesday, 31 March 2026

 Annabelle CLEELAND (Euroa) (19:05): (1611) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek is for her to come for a drive with Broadford local legend Archie Baines in one of his trucks and see firsthand the state of our local roads. It might sound like a nice invitation, but it is anything but. It is pretty dangerous. The shocking and deteriorating condition of our roads is incredibly serious.

I want to tell you about Archie. Archie Baines is 82 years old, a highly experienced truck driver with decades behind him, the kind of man that knows our roads better than most. On Sunday 22 March, after attending the Kyabram Mack Muster, Archie was driving along the Nagambie bypass at the Goulburn Valley Highway – a major arterial road, a key freight route, a road that should be safe. As he approached the first Nagambie overpass, his truck struck a large pothole in the right-hand wheel track, and within moments his steer tyre blew out, and what followed could have been fatal. His truck was dragged across the lanes, taking out about a hundred metres of fencing and safety barriers. There was significant damage to his truck and the vehicle he was towing, but by sheer luck Archie survived. Another local driver just behind him in a new vehicle hit the exact same pothole: multiple tyre blowouts, two incidents, the same stretch of road, the same hazard. What is concerning for every Victorian is the pothole had already been marked, ringed in white paint but not repaired, and this is exactly what people are seeing across the state: circles of paint everywhere, like warnings, but nothing is ever fixed. How many more circles of paint do we need before something is actually repaired? How many more warnings do the Allan Labor government need before it acts? Next time we may not be talking about a damaged truck. We may be talking about a life lost.

[NAMES AWAITING VERIFICATION]

Archie’s story is one of many. Shae, traveling the Violet Town to Murchison road four times a week for essential therapy, is navigating a road that is putting her at risk every trip. Corey hit a pothole in Anzac Avenue in Seymour. He hit it so hard he bent his rim and now has the most expensive hose reel that you can purchase. Julie between Heathcote and Nagambie has taken it upon herself to mark the potholes with her own paint, and across from Benalla to Yarrawonga and Avenel to Nagambie the roads are unsafe, pothole after pothole, rough patch after rough patch.

When someone like Archie, with decades of experience, is nearly taken out by a pothole on a major highway, that should be the wake-up call. He was incredibly lucky, and seconds later it could have been fatal. He could have gone on to a railway embankment, and the outcome could have been catastrophic. Our communities deserve safe roads. Our freight operators deserve infrastructure that reflects the critical role they play, and our families deserve to know that they will make it home safely. Minister, come for a drive. See it firsthand. Get into a truck with Archie, and let him show you the state of our roads properly.