Wednesday, 9 September 2026

 Annabelle CLEELAND (Euroa) (10:18): I rise today to speak on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee report into the 2026–27 budget estimates, and I am going to get stuck straight into some of the detail. I am conscious of time and the many elements of the Labor government’s investment and whether we are getting a return on investment into regional Victoria. The short answer is a fat no. Let us delve into the detail. We are going to talk about roads to start with, because regional Victorians have been gaslit a fair bit in the last few weeks with a substantial announcement, no doubt following our $5 billion commitment if elected this November into government to fix Victoria’s roads and establish Better Roads Victoria, which is a standard and KPI to make sure our roads are fixed for good. Where does this come from? It is because Labor’s own budget estimates and analysis of their investment show that 87 per cent of Victoria’s road network is in pretty bad condition, largely in regional Victoria.

I want to quickly mention, to back up some of those claims, today’s report from the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office (VAGO) Maintaining State Roads, which has just been tabled. Concerningly, 48 per cent of Victoria’s state roads are in poor or very poor condition. That has gone up nearly 40 per cent in the past few years, since 2021. This is shameful, and regional Victorians are paying the price. Just to explain the description of ‘very poor’, this is structurally failing roads. They have jumped to 37 per cent in three years. This is not a badge of honour that my region wears proudly, but sitting at the second-worst for road conditions in Victoria is Hume, with nearly 50 per cent – 47.98 per cent – of the roads rated very poor.

I know that for a fact, because people like Roberta Begg and Olga Novak have reached out. Olga’s story is just symptomatic of the issue in Victoria right now. She has a beautiful young family and is a nurse in our health services. She hit a pothole on the Saturday, could not work over the weekend and spent nearly half her wage in fixing a tyre. Olga is like every Victorian travelling on the roads in Victoria right now. It is really shameful the condition they are in. Considering VAGO were investigating the state of the roads, it is a coincidence when Labor comes out with a pothole fix blitz, I think. It smells like an election. But one thing is for sure: we are really proud to establish Better Roads Victoria, because Victorians are sick and tired of the standard of the repairs.

I also want to quickly mention health. We can go on on roads for the whole 5 minutes, and I wish I had more time, but right now we need access to health care. In the time I have been elected here, Labor has closed maternity at Benalla Health services, we are at risk of losing podiatry and in Kilmore it is very difficult to have a baby outside of business hours, 9 to 5. Try as you might to cross your legs, you cannot always time labour during business hours.

Steve Dimopoulos interjected.

Annabelle CLEELAND: Thank you to the minister at the table. Who can time a labour during business hours, because that is what Labor is expecting? Your party is expecting us to time our births between 9 and 5, otherwise we are sent to Melbourne hospitals. In this 12,500 square kilometres it is difficult to have a baby in regional Victoria. Closing our services erodes our health services, and we lose that whole-of-life care in regional Victoria. I am sorry, Minister, it is no laughing matter when you get redeployed. Listen to my maiden speech. This is the purpose of why I am here. These are not statistics, these are human stories of women being redirected to safer hospitals because you have closed our services. The Nationals will promise regional health care. We have committed – I am so proud – $40 million over four years to establish a rural health workforce incentive scheme with a $10,000 sign-on bonus to attract doctors, nurses, midwives and allied health professionals into regional communities, because if we want better regional health care, we need the workforce to deliver it.

I want to talk about public transport in my last 20 seconds. We do not need Labor to convince us of their poor investment in regional public transport, but we are going to fix that and double the services. Finally, there will be generational investment on the Seymour to Albury line, doubling the services from six to 12. This is exciting and going to be a game changer for our region. I want to thank the Liberals candidate for Benambra Steve Martin for fighting for this on the ground.