Wednesday, 9 September 2026

 The SPEAKER (16:01): This is the last matter of public importance of the 60th Parliament; there will be a grievance debate next sitting week. This is my last MPI. I have accepted a statement from the member for Gippsland South proposing the following matter of public importance for discussion:

That this house notes the poor condition of Victorian roads and the impact on Victorian motorists of damage to their vehicles, reduced freight efficiency and diminished productivity and calls for a return to a genuine preventative maintenance program to arrest the decline of one of the state’s biggest assets.

 Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (16:02): Thank you, Speaker, for introducing us on your last MPI. There will be some others that are coming here for their last MPI too. I am pretty confident I will be back here. One of the reasons that I will be back here and many on that side will not be is the appalling state of our roads under this Labor government, and they all know it. They are all sitting there smiling at the moment, but have a look at them in question time. In question time they were down in the dumps. They were absolutely very, very sad because of the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office report tabled today, Maintaining State Roads. It is a page-turner. I hope they have all had a read of it because they should understand, they should know about and they should be apologising to their electorates for just what an appalling job this government has done when it comes to our roads. Those opposite know it because they are hearing it from their constituents every day, I am sure, just as we are here in the opposition. Our roads are in crisis; there is no doubt about that.

The Auditor-General has come out with a report that most Victorians will say is not a surprise, but they will be surprised by some of the statistics. With the latest figures available, 2024, the Auditor-General has highlighted that now 48 per cent of the road network is in poor or very poor condition. Those opposite have gone quiet on that. They do not want to caterwaul, they do not want to throw something at the opposition now, because they know and they are embarrassed about how poorly they have performed under this government when it comes to the roads. That 48 per cent of the network being in poor or very poor condition – it has not got better, it has got worse. It was 39 per cent in 2021. Under this government it has got worse; the road performance has got worse. It is interesting to note too that there is a drive in this state at the moment from a certain sector to pretend that the government is not the government, to pretend that in fact what has been happening for the last couple of years has been done by something else. Indeed I would like to read to the house a line from a political document that has been circulating a little bit recently. It begins:

Victorians want change. They want problems fixed. They want a fair go at work and in their community. So do I …

says this intro. I said to the member for Kew, ‘Leader of the Opposition, are these your words?’ and she said, ‘No, I didn’t say that.’ I looked at it again and I thought, ‘No, they’re not my words.’ And I discovered that the person who wants change is the Premier. The Premier of the state is the person saying he wants change – the bloke who has been here for the last 12 years. The bloke who has been here for the last 12 years on the government benches, who has been the Premier for the last month, who was the Deputy Premier for the last three years, who has been a minister since I think 2017 or 2019, says he wants change because things are no good. Well, why are they no good? They are no good because of the Labor government.

I will go a step further on this particular MPI when it comes to roads. I mentioned that 39 per cent of the roads were in poor or very poor condition in 2021. Does anyone remember who the roads minister was in 2021? Does anyone remember?

Mary-Anne Thomas interjected.

Danny O’BRIEN: Does the member for Macedon remember? The member for Macedon has got a bit to say. Could she tell me who the minister for roads was in 2021?

The SPEAKER: Leader of the Nationals, through the Chair. You do not respond to interjections.

Danny O’BRIEN: I am asking a question, Speaker. I think I am entitled to ask the member for Macedon. Speaker, I know you know who the minister for roads was in 2021. It was the current Premier. At that point, 39 per cent of roads were in poor or very poor condition. What has happened since that bloke told us they were going to fix regional roads in particular? It has gotten worse. We now have 48 per cent of roads across the state – not just in rural and regional Victoria but right across the state – in poor or very poor condition. That is an indictment of the Premier of this state. It is an indictment of the member for Bendigo East. I saw the member for Williamstown today grinning like a Cheshire cat before question time began because she knew she did not have to cop the questions on roads. We will let the member Kalkallo off because she only had the job for two or three months – very happy to give that job up. We have had three ministers for roads in four months, and the poor old member for Box Hill has now picked up the gig. Apparently he is a civil engineer. He must be appalled at what he has picked up, because he has got such a bad job.

We heard a number of other things from the Auditor-General today. We heard that the department has advised the government that funding is insufficient to maintain or improve the condition of state roads. Funding is insufficient – that is not a great surprise. But there are a number of things that the Auditor-General said. The gap between the number of defects recorded and the number of defects repaired more than doubled between January 2025 and June 2026. In 18 months what was fixed versus what was recorded doubled the other way around – half of what was recorded actually got fixed. It highlights just how badly things are going. And we have got a Premier that has come in and said – what has he said? Integrity is not negotiable.

A member: No. It is no longer optional.

Danny O’BRIEN: Integrity is no longer optional, because it was completely optional for the previous 12 years. That is what we understand that to mean. Integrity is supposedly no longer optional, but the Auditor-General has found that the department’s performance statements that it runs in the budget that tackle roughness, rutting and cracking – now, they are important, but the Auditor-General highlighted today that the department has more meaningful information, such as data on the remaining useful life of roads, pavement condition, defect growth and repairs and the maintenance backlog, which would ‘improve transparency if made accessible to the public.’ But this government, this Premier, who says integrity is no longer optional, has not provided any of that data. Indeed I can go further on the issue of defect growth because I have had an FOI in with the government for something like six months trying to get access to the number of defects that have been recorded by the government. And have I got the answer to that? No, I have not. We have had to go to the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner, OVIC, and we still have not got an answer on that.

We have got the Auditor-General saying today that maintenance needs are accumulating faster than they are being addressed. That sums it up: the maintenance issues are accumulating faster than they are being addressed. All of this ties in together because, again, the Auditor-General has highlighted that the department asked for more money and the government has not given it. The Auditor goes on further:

The department has advised the government that funding levels have not been sufficient to maintain and improve the network, and that maintenance is increasingly focused on reactive and safety-critical repairs rather than preventative works.

Now there is that work, and I hear the Leader of the Opposition saying, ‘Mmm’, because she is sick of the Leader of the Nationals talking about preventative maintenance, because that is exactly what we are committed to doing. The Liberals and Nationals have committed $5 billion to address the state of our roads over four years. That is a 25 per cent increase on what is currently being spent. If you look at the average over the past four years, it is actually a $450 million a year increase, and we know that that is what is needed. But it is not about filling potholes. I am indebted to the member for South-West Coast on this issue, who spoke to me about it as we were finalising our policy. She said, ‘Don’t just talk about filling potholes. People are bloody sick of the government filling potholes’ – because what happens? They blow out again.

Emma Kealy interjected.

Danny O’BRIEN: Exactly, member for Lowan. Just like the budget, they blow out again, and within a couple of weeks after a drop of rain or a few trucks going over, the potholes are back again. So we are not committed to filling potholes, we are committed to eliminating potholes. On that I just want to touch on the government’s commitment of a few weeks ago, when the government said that they are going to eliminate 500,000 potholes by January. They have never done more than 200,000 in a year, and they are expecting Victorians to believe that they are going to do half a million in the next six months.

Jess Wilson interjected.

Danny O’BRIEN: The Leader of the Opposition is right: it is an election. They think, ‘We can just promise whatever we like.’ Five hundred thousand potholes fixed by this government is not to be believed. On the point raised by the Leader of the Opposition just now about it being an election, I would like to highlight another thing that the Auditor-General found today – on page 21 of the Auditor-General’s report. I am giving details for those opposite because I am pretty sure none of them will have actually read this; they have probably buried it deep down in their psyche somewhere and do not ever want to talk about it again. The Auditor-General has got something that we have not been able to find – a little bit like taxes that no-one knew about, the much-vaunted tax on public transport that no-one knew about and that apparently even the Premier did not know about, despite being the minister, being in cabinet and being on the budget review committee. This is yet another thing where the Auditor-General has got information that the Parliament and the people of Victoria are not privy to, and that is what the funding for roads maintenance in the coming years is going to be. He has highlighted on page ‍21 that what has been received in output funding and asset funding for 2026 is $336 million in output funding and an additional $150 million in asset funding. So you wonder what it will be for 2027–28. It would have to be more, wouldn’t you think? You would think it would have to be more.

Members interjecting.

Danny O’BRIEN: But it is actually not, member for Gippsland East. It is not. In fact it is –

The SPEAKER: Member for Gippsland East! Members who are not in their allocated seats will not interject, and they will be removed from the chamber.

Danny O’BRIEN: I appreciate your assistance, Speaker, because I was just getting to the crescendo of an important point: a $260 million cut next year. The government is saying, ‘We’re going to spend all this money. We’re going to fix 500,000 potholes before the election, basically. And then if we get re-elected, we’re going to cut the road maintenance budget again. We are going to cut it again.’ That is what this Labor government has said, and they have been caught out for the second time in the last couple of weeks by the Auditor-General, and it is a credit to him and his team that they are actually finding some of this information that is not available to the Victorian public. Because people will go to the election and there might be some few who believe – I doubt there would be many, because no-one actually believes this government when it comes to roads, but you never know; there might be someone who has just arrived here who says, ‘Hey, the government’s going to spend $352 million and remove 500,000 potholes in in six months. That’s good. I like the sound of that, because the roads are pretty crap. They’re pretty bad. Someone must’ve done a really bad job on these roads.’

We will tell this person who has just arrived in the state that, yes, the people that did a really bad job on these roads are the people who are now trying to convince you that they are someone else, trying to convince you that they are a different team and that the Premier is not Daniel Andrews, he is not Jacinta Allan – he is not even Ben Carroll. He is the Leader of the Opposition, it seems, because he is not responsible for anything that has gone on in the last 12 years, including the state of our roads. This is from a bloke who not only was the Deputy Premier for the last three years but actually had a stint of about 2½ years as the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, during which he cut nearly $200 million from the roads maintenance budget. Do not believe it from me – I heard the Leader of the House during question time say, ‘Lies. No facts, no facts’ – once again, the Auditor-General, not me, a $200 million reduction. There it is, a $200 million reduction. I will not use a prop, though, Speaker. It was a $200 million reduction when the now Premier was the minister for roads. That is why we have got this report today that highlights that 48 per cent of our roads in this state are now classed as poor or very poor, and that is an indictment of this Labor government.

The Nationals and Liberals have got a plan. We have got a $5 billion plan to get back to doing the preventative maintenance, to make sure that we stop the potholes from forming in the first place. It is dull, it is boring, it is grading roadsides, it is cleaning out table drains, but it is the basics, and it is the basics of what a government should be doing for this state – not a government that wasted $15 billion on corruption on the Big Build. A government that we will lead will actually do the basics and fix our roads, unlike this lot, which has led to them being poor or very poor.

 Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (16:17): I love the fact that I am following the member for Gippsland South. It has been one of the pleasures of the 60th Parliament for me to sit as the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee chair and listen to the member for Gippsland South every year – well, kind of twice a year. He does it twice a year; he talks about roads. All of his questions are about roads. We get muddled up and befuddled about budget numbers and how it is calculated time and time again, to the point where in the end he gets nothing on the minister that he has been seeking. It is lovely to follow him on the last MPI, and we are doing it on roads here in Victoria.

The member for Gippsland South made just a slight error. I do not want to be someone to just go on and correct the record, but he talked about the action that a Liberal–National coalition government will take. But the reality of that is it will not be a Liberal–National coalition that might make government this November, it will be a One Nation–Liberal coalition. I have to say it would be even funnier if we saw the member for Kew join the One Nation candidate for – what is he running in? – Pakenham jump into his orange ute to go out and check out some potholes. We know she loves going out there, standing roadside, pointing at different things on the road. I would love to see her doing it next to the orange ute. If he is sitting next to her in Parliament when we return in December – whenever it is – it will give me a great deal of pleasure to know that she will be sitting next to him there in that orange ute.

This matter on this paper talks about roads and road maintenance, but the truth of the matter is that this matter is not just about roads, it is about who Victorians can rely on to pay for them. I wonder how the member for Gippsland South can square away increasing spending on road maintenance with their policy to strip $40 billion from the state budget. Forty billion dollars is not an insignificant amount of money; it is an extraordinary amount of money. Those opposite have failed at every turn to talk about where and what they will cut as part of that $40 billion.

The member for Gippsland South also talked about a little page-turner that was released today. There is also another little page-turner, and I must admit this is the stuff that requires highlighters to highlight the horror that is written in this report. The Australia Institute has released a report, Victorian Opposition Fiscal Strategy: An Assessment, and what a damning assessment it is. I am going to read out from the first page here because it is absolutely unbelievable. It says here:

This paper assesses the Victorian Opposition’s fiscal strategy, which aims for a surplus by 2032 … It finds the centrepiece measure – $22 billion in savings from a public sector “back office” hiring freeze – unachievable. Such savings would require elimination of around 31,700 jobs …

That is extraordinary – over 31,000 jobs. My question to the opposition will be: who are you expecting to do all of this work? Who are you expecting to do all of this road maintenance if you are about to sack over 31,000 public servants? That is extraordinary. I have a little bit of a laugh about the member for Kew and the One Nation candidate for Pakenham jumping in his orange ute to go and fill in potholes; that may be in the end how she goes and gets things done. Over 31,000 Victorians having their jobs completely ripped away from them is just extraordinary. It goes on to say that this could push up unemployment towards 5.4 per cent, which is just mind-boggling. The member for Gippsland South – I think it was in the Age today – refused to commit to what the department was requesting, which is the $3 billion, I think it was, a year in funding that it needs to fix up and maintain roads. He refused to commit to that. He did not say that in his contribution just now, but he would not commit to that; he cannot commit to that.

When we talk about what Labor is doing to address the potholes and road maintenance here in this state, it is extraordinary. We know on this side of the house there is a positive story to tell, and there has been work happening over the past four years. I hear in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee about the work that is happening and that we are undertaking in relation to road maintenance. The Carroll Labor government has just announced a further $352 million to be spent on doubling the amount of potholes we are removing; that is taking them from 250,000 to over 500,000 this year. That is work that is not happening tomorrow; that is work that is happening right now. It is immediate – not months from now, not in the distant future but right now, and it needs to happen right now. That is more than double the amount of potholes that those opposite were saying that they could remove in a given year; in fact that is more than double in reality, because they will not be able to deliver that if they cut funding here. They will cut it here, there and everywhere. That is their $40 billion in cuts.

We are not stopping there with increased road maintenance funding. We have announced that a re-elected Carroll Labor government in November will develop a plan to bring state road maintenance programs back in house. That is essentially what we need to do. We will make it easier for Victorians to report potholes and see what repairs we are making and when, and I think it is really important that Victorians understand that work is being done to fix potholes and that they are able to see it, they are able to go ahead and identify it and report it and we are able to go on and fix it. We will make everyone accountable, and that is really important. We will make everyone accountable, whether it is us or councils, including through compensation, and we will use local knowledge and let local teams prioritise local repairs. All of these things will lead to more efficient repairs and safer roads for everyone. That is what Victorians want, and we will do all of that whilst continuing to invest in the infrastructure projects that our communities need.

As a westie I was so happy to see that a number of those road projects that we have just announced and we have committed to delivering if re-elected in November, I am very proud to say, are in Melbourne’s west. I know the member for Point Cook is over the moon to tell folks that we will be continuing to improve Point Cook Road, with $195 million to duplicate it from Central Avenue to Dunnings Road after we finish works on the Central Avenue intersection. That is something his community and even my community, as a neighbour of his, have been wanting for a very long time, and our government has a plan to do it. It is also something that a lot of folks in my community will benefit from, because they drive into Point Cook from this road.

My very good friend – and a new dad – the member for Werribee is really happy to tell his community about how we will continue to make progress on Ballan Road in his electorate. Ballan Road has been a constant bugbear of his constituents, of my constituents, and we are going to commit $83 million to upgrade the intersection of Ballan Road and Bolton Road, building on the works to remove the roundabout there and fully duplicate that section of Ballan and Bolton roads. His community is over the moon about that. I remember being out in Werribee with the member during his by-election – gosh, it feels like a long time ago, he has been working so hard – last year, and this was something that folks raised a lot with us. Well, the member for Werribee has been listening and so has our government, and we have got a plan for the next step.

I also saw yesterday, from my friend – I have got lots of them in Wyndham – the member for Tarneit, that we have committed to a $90 million upgrade of the Hogans Road and Derrimut Road intersection in Hoppers Crossing. Being the previous member for Tarneit, I know just what an annoying intersection this has been for locals for a very long time. So whether it is locals in Hoppers Crossing, whether it is people in Williams Landing and in Truganina, everyone knows this intersection, and they have wanted it upgraded for a very, very long time – me included. So this is tremendous news. My colleagues in Brimbank and Melton, I know, are absolutely over the moon with the $170 million committed to upgrading Taylors Road, which is another horrendous road. That has been a big priority for Brimbank City Council, and it is one that our government has now committed to.

None of these roads that we have announced are in my patch of Laverton, but the Laverton people are out and about, and they are driving on these roads each and every single day. And I mention them because I know that road upgrades do not just benefit the people who live in this electorate or that electorate, they benefit everyone – including me – who drives there almost on a weekly basis. Folks in Truganina drive on these roads to get to work, to go shopping or to visit friends and family. Folks in Sunshine and Albion, Ardeer and Braybrook drive on Taylors Road. Folks in Laverton drive on Point Cook Road. These are welcome investments and ones that my colleagues have long been advocating for.

There is more. I am just waiting to get to the big one, which I know every westie –

Mathew Hilakari interjected.

Sarah CONNOLLY: I know. I have done Point Cook, member for Point Cook. You were not here. I said you were over the moon. But there is more. The big mighty one that we announced was the Western Freeway. How many of us drive on the Western Freeway? This was announced on the weekend: an additional $550 million to upgrade the Western Freeway between Melton and Caroline Springs, including the Hopkins Road interchange, which will be a big one for folks in Truganina and Tarneit who travel to Melton and back. And do you know what else is interesting about these projects? They are fully costed and they are fully funded. We have found the money for this. This funding is coming from more than $2 billion in descoping from the Suburban Rail Loop works, which is, I think, a really good thing.

Let us talk about the fiscal strategy of those opposite, because if they are intending to do all this work on roads, they need to be able to pay for it. But all we know from them is their $40 billion in cuts. I have just talked about the Australia Institute telling us they are going to chop over 31,000 jobs. I cannot wait to get out on the doors this Friday and this weekend and tell folks that, because I have doorknocked a lot of people who have been public servants, and the first thing they raise with me is the fear of losing their job. They will lose their job under a Liberal–One Nation coalition government. This report confirms it. These people are more than just back office staff, by the way, and the 31,700 ‍jobs are more than half the size of the Victorian public service, and it does not include external public entities. What we know is that no doubt that would include cuts to the Department of Transport and Planning, cuts to staff that they will need to deliver and carry out road upgrades and maintenance. There is no pledge from those opposite not to cut those jobs.

If we go ahead and we dissect these numbers a bit more, that is at least 1500 workers across regional Victoria. As I continue to crunch the numbers – I know the member for Gippsland South and Gippsland East have left, but that is 230 workers in their patch. I wonder what the members for Gippsland South and Gippsland East think about that, that jobs are being slashed in their regions. Will slashing over 31,000 jobs make our roads in the regions safer? Will they? No, I do not think so. These cuts would mean that these road projects I have just mentioned for Melbourne’s west – this is what westies need to know – will not see the light of day. They will never, ever happen under a Liberal–One Nation government. They will not have the staff and they will not have the funding. They will never, ever be done. But let us just be clear: these cuts are not limited to transport and roads, are they? We know that.

I will pivot to energy because just today I read in a separate report that the opposition’s plan to cancel renewable energy projects in regional Victoria, like the VNI project and Western Renewables Link, would see Victorians pay at least $100 more for electricity a year. Victoria currently has the lowest wholesale electricity costs in the country because of the work that we have done in this space. This has not happened by accident. This is 12 years of hard, continuous work that means we have the lowest wholesale electricity costs in the country. They plan for cuts to the energy transition, including gutting the State Electricity Commission and stifling investments in renewables, and this will see wholesale prices increase by 40 per cent.

This is a typical MPI topic from the member for Gippsland South, but I think what the member for Gippsland South has not acknowledged is how they will pay for it and who will do the work. The report that has been released today emphatically points out that the fiscal strategy of the opposition is an absolute failure; it is a furphy. It is something that is going to hurt working people, hurt working Victorians and slash jobs, including slashing jobs in the regions, driving up unemployment towards 5.4 per cent, which is just what people will get if a One Nation–Liberal coalition is elected this November.

 Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (16:32): Here is a newsflash: the Auditor-General determined today through their report that our roads are in a very crappy condition. I think ‘very poor’ was the term that he used, but I know people in my electorate who would use much stronger language than that and would absolutely know this. It is no surprise whatsoever to see now that 48 per cent of our roads – nearly half – are in poor or very poor condition. The Auditor-General does these reports every now and again, every eight or so years, and one of the things that they have referenced at the front of the report is the issues with having roads in poor condition: increasing travel times, the cost of operating a vehicle and the risk of accidents. We see this – all of us see this, government members see this. Government members drive over these pothole-ridden surfaces. I know – I was heading to Macedon not so long ago, driving up the Calder. I cannot believe that the former Premier was ignoring the issues on the Calder – the litter was one thing, but the potholes were extraordinary – and did nothing about it. She turned a blind eye as she was chauffeur-driven up the Calder Highway. But there is an impact on people. By delaying maintenance or diverting funding, the problem gets worse. The longer you leave it, the worse it gets.

Not so long ago I was in Kinglake. I was on the Healesville-to-Whittlesea road, and there was a series of about seven or eight little potholes. If they are not attended to – and they were not – they will grow and grow and grow. We get huge potholes and craters, and people complain to me all of the time. It has an impact on people because they do get punctures, and they do need to go and get them fixed. It costs a lot of money, and in a cost-of-living crisis, which we are in now, people do not have spare cash to get a new tyre or fix a rim every two or three months when they hit a pothole. On these roads, in these conditions, it is difficult to see at some points – at dusk, at night, in the wet and in forested areas, like in my electorate. As you drive around corners at dusk or as it gets dark, you cannot actually see the potholes. If there is water on the road, you do not always know that there is a 60-centimetre-deep crater that your car may be about to hit.

Victoria has a growing population, and with that growing population come more cars on the road. People are out and about a lot more, and that does more damage to our roads. There is more traffic on the roads, more cars and more freight. We have caravans and we have horse floats. All of these things are on the roads. And the trucks, the more and more they drive over those little potholes, they become bigger and bigger. It is not just the Auditor-General talking about the roads; it is everybody – everywhere I go, every event I attend. Every day in the office we have emails, comments on Facebook or somebody ringing the office to complain about the roads. It is not just in my electorate. I know my colleagues have these issues all of the time, and I know government members have this all of the time. ABC radio and ABC TV cover the pothole situations. It is not just talkback on AM at all. FM stations cover this as well. People out there everywhere are talking about issues with our roads. They are telling me about the potholes, the crumbling surfaces and shoulders – no shoulders – and the wire rope barriers that have got trees 1 metre wide and 1½ metres high growing out of the middle of the road. Tell me that is not going to be a problem. I have never seen anything from the government to say what they are going to do about this. There are white lines that are faded – the white lines on the Black Spur, for example, which is a pretty testy road at the best of times – and white lines to the side covered with leaves, litter and debris. In fact it was the police who alerted me to that because people have to travel closer to the middle of the road because they cannot see where it falls away. There are broken or missing cat’s eyes. This is what people tell me all the time.

We knew this and, guess what, it turns out the Auditor-General found the same thing. To think now that half the network – 48 per cent of the network – is in poor condition or very poor condition. These are the 2024 figures, up from 39 per cent in 2021. In 2021 39 per cent of the roads were rated as poor or very poor, and now it is 48 per cent. Well, no-one in my electorate will be even remotely surprised to hear that. The roads in very poor condition for their remaining useful life jumped from 26 per cent in 2021 to 37 per cent. These are enormous jumps. The Victorian Auditor-General’s Office report was tabled today. This is not something that we are making up; this is something that the Auditor-General can hold his hand on his heart about. We can all hold our hands on our hearts, as can members of the government and as should members of the government. Eighty-two per cent of state roads are in regional Victoria – makes sense – and the worst performing state region is Loddon Mallee, but Hume is not far behind. In fact in Hume we have got nearly 48 per cent that are rated very poor or poor – 48 ‍per cent. In Loddon Mallee it was 54 per cent. These are extraordinary numbers.

The government are now saying that they have been listening – seriously. The government have been in office for such a long time and have let this get out of hand. They have not managed the road maintenance at all. The backlog is blowing out. The gap between defects identified and defects fixed has more than doubled between January 2025 and June 2026 – that is on page 8. The asset renewal ratio basically says that if you have a ratio of one, that indicates that the investment matches the depreciation and is enough to preserve the asset’s current condition. That is if it is one. Well, it is not one, it is 0.16. That is such a staggeringly low number. It is extraordinary that the roads have been left to get into this condition. I know that is the case in my electorate – it does not matter where you go, if you are in Hoddles Creek or Healesville, Homewood, Flowerdale down to Hurstbridge, St Andrews to Hurstbridge or to Kangaroo Ground, Boorolite or Bonnie Doon. And I will tell you what, a young person from Boorolite, which is just out of Mansfield, was talking to me earlier today to say the age of one of their trucks at the brigade is 40 years old. I cannot imagine that driving that 40-year-old truck on those pothole-ridden roads around Mansfield will do the truck any good. It is pretty remarkable that they are having to drive vehicles like that already.

One of the things I will pick up is something that the member for Laverton mentioned before. I heard a lovely quote: ‘This hasn’t happened by accident’ and ‘12 years of continuous work’. She was trying to spin something to say it was good. Well, nor has the road condition happened by accident. It is 12 ‍years of continuous neglect, and that is not good enough. People in country Victoria need good roads. People from the city are visiting our regions – more and more people are getting out into the regions to see all of the wonderful things that we have to offer in the Mansfield and Murrindindi areas and into the Yarra Ranges or even parts of Nillumbik. As they get further out, they realise our roads are in a poor state.

The coalition is fair dinkum about tackling these roads. The Liberals and the Nationals have a very clear plan for managing the state-owned road assets. Not only that, we are prepared, as we were the last time we were in government, to help out the smaller councils in the country areas with our country roads and bridges program, which is $1.5 million per council per year for that four-year term, so that they too can work on the smaller roads and the bridges that pretty well break their budget. I know a lot cannot get done because they have been underfunded. The government has not looked after some of the small councils anywhere near enough, and the situation is pretty dire. We have this plan about removing potholes, getting asset maintenance back on track and making life better not just for country Victorians but also for those in the city who visit our areas. I know those in the city have potholes in their roads because I have driven on them coming to Parliament.

 Josh BULL (Sunbury) (16:42): I am pleased to have the opportunity this afternoon to make a contribution on this matter of public importance. Just listening to the previous member’s reflections and appreciation for the Auditor-General, it is good to know that the member appreciates the work of the Auditor-General. It is very important. There was a Premier that was pretty determined to sack the Auditor-General at one point in time; I am not quite sure which side of the house they were from. But let me just say that this government, at each and every opportunity, remains committed to supporting Victorians, and I have the opportunity this afternoon to correct the record and make some reflections on this government’s support for Victorians and local communities right across the state. For more than 12 years that significant and sustained investment in transport, in health and in education has been making for a better and fairer state, as opposed to the doom and gloom and fear and division that we see from the characters on the other side.

What we have seen in recent times are the announcements from the Premier and the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, which I do want to cover, some of the significant and important announcements that have been made. There is more than $352 million to double the number of potholes to be fixed from 250,000 to more than 500,000; the bringing of the state maintenance program into government, something that is very important and has recently been announced; and, as others have done, and I think the member for Laverton did this really well, canvassing all of those investments that the government has made to provide for projects that are going to make a difference to local communities, particularly in growth areas and particularly within regional Victoria, which I know is a deep passion of yours, Speaker. There is more than $550 million for the Western Freeway upgrade, and if we are re-elected, more projects around Point Cook Road, Taylors Road, Somerton Road, Hallam Road and all of the work that is done through the north and the west and in Geelong as well. These are serious and significant projects, and we remain committed to delivering them.

What you can do is focus on those things, the problems that are before us and the investments that we need to make. Or you can do what those opposite do, which is come in here and play cheap political games. That does not achieve much at all. The announcements that have been made will make a genuine and tangible difference on the ground, certainly in my electorate, which is also a growth corridor. As you know, that significant project of the duplication of Sunbury Road from Bulla-Diggers Rest Road all the way through to Powlett Street has made a genuine and sustained difference to my local community, and it is a project that I am really, really pleased that we have been able to deliver. In the period between 2010 and 2014 there were no local road projects delivered. I do not think that will come as a surprise to anyone on this side of the house.

The other point I did want to make is that whilst this focus from our government remains on actual projects, on real delivery and on plans for supporting population growth, those opposite have been drafting up what are savage plans to strip more than $40 billion from our schools, our hospitals, our public services and our public service. You might think that as a member on this side of the house I might be putting a little bit of mayo on this and I might be sort of pumping this up. I would say: do not take it from me. I would refer to the independent report –

Roma Britnell interjected.

Josh BULL: Indeed. As I said before, you are now happy with the work of the Auditor-General, but there is also another report that I want to refer to, if I could, from the Australia Institute. This report, which has been out in the public domain today, talks about what will occur if these $40 billion of cuts are implemented. This is a really serious matter, and what we have seen time and time again is a real concern from local communities. I heard the member for Laverton speak about this in relation to some of her doorknocking: the significant and important damage that this back office hiring freeze would cause. We are talking somewhere in the order of more than 31,000 jobs, pushing the unemployment rate to more than 5.4 per cent.

Compare and contrast that to that list of just roads projects that have recently been announced but most importantly the government’s plan for economic growth – growing the economy, stabilising debt, growing the economy as a proportion of gross state product and making a financial plan that keeps people employed and delivering so many of those services that growing populations need as we evolve through what is a really complex time for the state and the nation. The choice could not be clearer. Victorians are going to go to the November election with the choice that looks at the fear and division of a coalition Liberal–One Nation circus or this side of the house, which is focused on schools and roads and hospitals and services. This is the opportunity that we bring to the table.

I know that some of the members are still pretty excited about the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office, and I will go back to my point earlier that it certainly was not any Premier on this side of the house that wanted to, at one point in our Victorian history, get rid of the Auditor-General – sack the Auditor-General.

Roma Britnell interjected.

Josh BULL: That is very complimentary. I was born then, but that is okay. I am going to take the compliment. I have not been told that for a while, but that is okay. I am going to take up the interjection. I am just going to cut that one out. I like that. What we remain focused on is making sure we are supporting Victorians to be their best and making sure that we are investing in all of those services that I mentioned before, not bringing forward what will be a 30,000-plus cut to jobs within our state, driving up unemployment to over 5 per cent.

We remain focused on delivering the services that Victorians need. That stands in stark contrast to what we are now seeing. There is a vast difference between getting out, talking to local communities, investing in the services and the opportunities that local communities and people right across our state need and indeed deserve and bringing forward a program of cuts and chaos and fear and division. That is what we are now seeing from those opposite. The report that I referred to earlier is one, I am sure, of many that are to come.

Members interjecting.

Josh BULL: I think what we are going to see over the course of weeks and the next couple of months, member for Point Cook, will be a whole series of analyses that are going to show Victorians what will happen should that $40 billion of cuts come into play.

We remain focused on delivering for every single Victorian, and I want to acknowledge the work that has been done, particularly within the space of many of those commitments that were announced over the past couple of weeks. Again I point out that from what we are seeing in these reports and the report today from the Australia Institute, the damage that will be done will be significant and long lasting. Indeed, speaking to people in my local community, that is something they are very concerned about, and we will make sure that we have every opportunity to explain that clearly from now all the way through until November. That is our focus. It remains our focus today, and it will remain our focus every single day that we are in government.

 Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (16:52): Road safety is not a luxury. Safe, reliable roads are one of the most basic responsibilities of a government, and after more than a decade in office, Labor has comprehensively failed in that responsibility. Across South-West Coast, people are not simply driving on bad roads anymore. They are driving on roads that are crumbling beneath them. They dodge potholes, they blow tyres, they smash rims. They wait beside dangerous roads for assistance. Freight operators lose time and productivity. Families pay repair bills they should not have incurred and cannot afford. Today the Victorian Auditor-General has exposed what regional Victorians have been saying for years: Victoria’s roads are deteriorating faster than the government is fixing them. Now, these are not my words, these are the Auditor-General’s words in this document that has been handed down to the Parliament today.

The examination by the Auditor-General has found that one of Victoria’s biggest and most important assets has been left in a state of disrepair. So what are the facts that the Auditor-General has found? He has found that for years Labor told Victorians it was spending record amounts and doing a wonderful job of maintaining our roads. But today the spin is exposed. The department warned the government that the funding was insufficient to maintain or improve the roads condition. They were told that the proportion of roads in poor and very poor condition was increasing, and the approach that the government has been taking to road maintenance has been too reactive instead of preventative. The report also shows that the condition of the roads is getting worse, not better, with the proportion of roads rated poor or very poor increasing by almost 10 per cent. Roads rated very poor on ‘remaining useful life’ have increased by more than 10 per cent also. The evidence shows that the gap between defects identified and defects fixed more than doubled from January 2025 to June 2026. It further notes that the quality inspectors were inconsistent, that required inspections were missed and that on some projects only one in four contractors had provided the required methodology for prioritising maintenance work. The findings are an indictment of Labor. They are the facts.

Labor did not have a pothole problem. It created a maintenance crisis, and now, less than three months before an election, Premier Ben Carroll has suddenly discovered potholes. After years of regional Victorians pleading for action, the Premier announces 500 pothole repairs and admits finally that the condition of our roads is not good enough. That is the understatement of the decade. The Premier is not suddenly talking about roads because Labor has discovered preventative maintenance. He is talking about roads because their condition has become so appalling that he cannot pretend otherwise any longer. This is not a road maintenance strategy, it is a political rescue mission, and Ben Carroll cannot pretend he is some innocent bystander or a newcomer cleaning up somebody else’s mess.

Paul Mercurio: On a point of order, Speaker, I ask you to ask the member to use correct titles for sitting members.

The SPEAKER: I remind the member to use correct titles.

Roma BRITNELL: The Premier Ben Carroll cannot pretend he is an innocent newcomer cleaning up somebody else’s mess. He sat at the cabinet table. He was Deputy Premier.

Mathew Hilakari: On a point of order, Speaker, the member is defying your ruling regarding using correct titles.

The SPEAKER: It is the Premier, member for South-West Coast.

Roma BRITNELL: He was the deputy.

Mathew Hilakari interjected.

Roma BRITNELL: No, he is not my mate. You are quite correct. Thank you for that interjection and that clarification. He was the Deputy Premier, and he was the Deputy Premier under former Premier Jacinta Allan. Importantly, he was also the roads minister.

Members interjecting.

Roma BRITNELL: The correct title is former Premier.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Former Premier is a correct title. Member for Bendigo East would be a correct title. I appreciate the member following the rules.

Roma BRITNELL: The point is the Premier, who is our current Premier, is no innocent bystander. He was directly responsible for ripping $200 million out of the annual roads budget when he was the minister for roads and he now is trying to say that suddenly he is the man who will save us from the declining road situation. Spare us. He now has promised $350 million this year, before Christmas, to fix the situation. Funny that there is an election in less than three months. But, guess what, what happens next year? That has been identified as well. There is only going to be $225 million to fix the roads after the election, for the following year. Something is wrong with that maths, but people in South-West Coast are not fools.

This government has outsourced enormous amounts of road maintenance, yet it has failed to ensure contractors are properly supervised and held accountable for the quality of work. And that is not an attack on the workers doing the job. I have spoken to contractors who know exactly what is wrong. They know when a treatment will not last. They know a foundation that needs rebuilding, and they know water is getting under the pavement. But when government contracts prescribe cheap, short-term treatment, that is what gets delivered. The failure is not the bloke operating the grader, and let us talk about graders because we have got hardly any. That is why we are seeing the water held against the road and undermining the foundation.

We, as Liberals, have made a commitment to fix the roads properly. We will not be filling potholes only, which is what this government’s strategy is. We will eliminate potholes.

A member interjected.

Roma BRITNELL: It is a significant difference, my colleague points out, because potholes just get repaired over and over again. That is like saying you have fixed the roof by putting heaps more buckets under the roof when it is raining. Our commitment is $5 billion over four years to repair the roads properly, a 25 per cent increase that starts with the foundation and eliminates potholes. We will return to preventative maintenance. We will rebuild foundation and restore the shoulders. We will clear the drains, and we will grade the roadside vegetation, removing vegetation, and we will return to 10 per cent renewing of roads and resealing.

This is a government that says it will bring everything back in-house for efficiency but just last week finalised a contract to privatise the spray-sealing contracts and line-marking contracts. This is a government that just has no idea that a stitch in time saves nine. Labor’s approach has been to wait for a hole and play whack-a-mole with potholes, and now the Premier boasts about how many potholes he will patch. It is just a tragedy that we have to see the government getting so close to understanding that they are about to lose their seats, rather than actually recognising their role is to care for Victorians who are driving on these unsafe roads, destroying their cars, fearing for their lives and wondering how they can get to work in the dark when they are a dairy farmer or a nurse who has no choice but to navigate these dangerous roads that we are subjected to.

Labor spent years telling Victorians how much money they were spending, but they have been deceiving Victorians. We will make a very different system. We do not need a system that is based on fools trying to fool us. We need a system where contractors are properly supervised. We will be making sure taxpayers get what they pay for. We will put a system in place that fixes foundations, keeps water out and maintains the asset before it fails, because the cheapest pothole repair is the pothole that proper maintenance prevents from forming in the first place. After more than a decade of Labor’s neglect, Victorians deserve roads that are not merely patched for an election; they deserve roads that are built, maintained and repaired properly for the next generation. And as every dairy farmer can tell you, the way to fix a pothole is to make sure you build a proper road from the foundation up and repair it properly, not to actually try to think you can ever successfully repair a pothole. That is a quick fix for a safety reason, and I do not deny the importance of that, but that is not how we will be addressing our approach to the roads here in Victoria if we are given the great honour of being elected to govern in November and give Victorians a fresh start.

 Mathew HILAKARI (Point Cook) (17:02): I will follow on from, I would say, the confused member for South-West Coast, because she spent a lot of time talking about dairy farmers’ responsibility in road maintenance and their quality and understanding of how to fix roads. I thought we left that up to traffic engineers and those people who were professionally –

Roma Britnell interjected.

Mathew HILAKARI: The member for South-West Coast, the intellectual giant of those opposite, is ready to inform many on this side of the house on how road maintenance is done. Look, I will leave that up to traffic engineers and managers – those people whose job it is to do so. To quote the member for Mordialloc, they were spine-tingling this afternoon. This is their last MPI for this term of government, for the 60th Parliament, and this is what they are delivering up. The member for Gippsland South sort of ran out of puff about halfway through his speech. He tried to keep going, but he could not. He was done. And the MP for Eildon is always a shining light amongst those opposite. ‘Ready to govern’ – that is where they are at. I felt like this was actually a series of valedictory speeches that I have been hearing from those opposite. The valedictory speeches, one after another, were bemoaning the ineffectual nature of their time in politics, and they are ready to walk out the door, which many of them will, particularly those Nationals.

The Nationals will not exist post this election. They will be one of those figments of political imagination in the next Parliament, because One Nation are likely to just decimate them. I expect one or two of them will remain. I hope to see the urbane member for Gippsland South again, but his valedictory says he is probably thinking otherwise, particularly with the recent announcements of their colleagues in One Nation in the community that he represents and those adjoining it who have considered that nuclear is the way to get back into power. It did not go well in the federal election. It was not particularly helpful for them, but again they are re-plugging this well: ‘How do we get nuclear power in? This is a really great idea. Everyone’s going to pay. Oh, wait, no-one’s going to pay for it.’ It is going to be the public purse – that is who pays for nuclear power, because we know it is impossible to do and no-one is willing to finance it. They are talking about nuclear power plants on the backs of utes now. This is a new one for me.

They have gone from the big power plant that no-one is going to fund – except for the public purse, should they get into power together with One Nation. By the way I think One Nation will be the opposition – the Libs are just going to be some crossbench losers – and will just do as they please. They have gone from the big nuclear power plant, our Homer Simpson–style affair, and now they are going to modular. They might do that. It has not really been shown to work anywhere at all, and again, it would be funded by the public purse. Now they are going to the back-of-the-ute style, so you will have these nuclear power plants on the back of a ute. Just drop them around. It is going to be a real joy to see these things across Victoria. It will not just be in Gippsland South, it will not just be in Morwell and it will not just be in Traralgon, in all those places; it will be wherever they drop their ute off. It is going to be really great stuff, inspiring things.

Inspiring is this policy where they go, ‘Everything’s terrible. There are potholes on every corner, and it’s impossible to drive around our communities,’ which is what they keep quoting. Then they say, ‘But if only we spend 25 per cent more, that will fix it.’ How much did the wind fall out of their sails when we announced that we were putting in more than 35 per cent more into the budget related to potholes for this year. They would have been crestfallen at that moment, the opposition, and crestfallen again when we called the royal commission. You can just see it is dragging them down. Instead of getting excited, ready to go, ready to govern – oh dear, they are just crestfallen over and over again.

But the member for Gippsland South in his valedictory today said a couple of good quotable quotes. I thought they were pretty good – ‘We are not committed to filling potholes’ was a quotable quote. I thought this was their main election strategy. It is that and nuclear, for the member for Gippsland South, the Leader of the Nationals. I could not believe it. He said, ‘We’re not committed to filling potholes,’ and he said, ‘We’re going to cut road maintenance again’ – another quotable quote from him. I am happy for him to correct me on Hansard, but they were his words, not mine.

The MP for Eildon had deep concerns about 40-year-old trucks on the roads. For those that are regular listeners, if they missed that occasion, the MP for Brighton I believe will add that into his book of quotable quotes, the wit and witticism of the member for Brighton that he publishes each year, his set of speeches, all the brilliance that he has presented to this Parliament on the public dime. Of course they are definitely on the public dime. But he could include a special addendum to this year’s edition for the MP for Eildon’s deep concerns about 40-year-old trucks on the road. I think that is an opportunity for him, so it is a freebie from me, member for Brighton. I am really happy to help.

The MP for South-West Coast got up, and it just made me wonder: where is their Andrew Hastie in this Parliament? Where is that person who is willing to stand up to One Nation, not cuddle up to One Nation? Where is that person who is willing to stand up to One Nation on their side? Because they have got to find their Andrew Hastie.

Richard Riordan interjected.

Mathew HILAKARI: The member for Polwarth reminds me that we are talking about roads. I think the road to nowhere it might be. I am happy to talk about roads in the area of Point Cook. I will take you up on that, member for Polwarth. You are not going to be around for long, so I can certainly give you a few things on the way through. We just turned on the lights at Point Cook Road and Central Avenue. That was one of those big projects coming to fruition. I actually do not think your candidate for the Liberal Party remained a member of the Liberal Party for more than 5 minutes after the election. She had had it with you. But she said, ‘You’re never going to do it.’ The lights are on at Point Cook Road and Central Avenue. I have been through there the last two days. I invite the member for Polwarth to join me anytime he would like to drive through that intersection, and it will be a quick experience for him, because unlike previously, having to wait there for a long time, now you can just go straight through. The improvements are ongoing at that intersection. There is still some more work to do, absolutely, at that site, and that will wrap up in the first quarter of next year. Then we are on to Central Avenue, and we are duplicating that. The member for Caulfield will be familiar with that intersection and that set of works.

Should we be elected we will be duplicating Point Cook Road from Central Avenue all the way through to Dunnings Road and getting on with that work that I actually say should have happened 30 ‍years ago when it was Werribee council. They should have done those works then, but in the absence of them not doing them then, the best time to get on with it is now.

Richard Riordan interjected.

Mathew HILAKARI: The member for Polwarth is just trying to flex in this last opportunity for him at this time, because, member for Polwarth, the time is running out. The clock is ticking for some of those opposite. The reason for that is because they cannot work out how they are going to deal with their cuts. This report came out today from the Australia Institute: Victorian Opposition Fiscal Strategy: An Assessment. What does it say in that assessment? It would require the elimination of 31,700 jobs from our public service. There is only one goal they seek to beat after the next election should those opposite have the privilege and the honour of forming government. The only thing they are trying to beat is their unemployment rate. When Napthine left – you remember Napthine; he was here for a brief period of time – 6.7 per cent was the unemployment rate. This report says it would push it to 5.4 per cent, but I reckon that is lowballing it, because when you take the confidence out of the economy, when you start sacking wholesale staff across the public service, when people cannot go to their hospital and get treatment, when their local school is getting shut down, when their TAFE is getting shut down, that is a sure way to collapse the economy. They are setting us up for a recession in Victoria. What did the report say? It said:

… cost-of-living spending proposals are largely uncosted and would chiefly benefit higher-income households.

Who is shocked with this? The party that is supported by and supportive of One Nation, supportive of their benefactor Gina Rinehart and has not met a worker that they did not want to rip off will chiefly benefit higher income households. Nothing has changed for those opposite except where they will be sitting after this election.

 Anthony MARSH (Nepean) (17:12): I think we are meant to be talking about roads, but I am not sure what that contribution was. It was about 5 per cent about roads, but anyway. The condition of Victoria’s roads has become one of the most persistent concerns raised with me by constituents across Nepean. It is one of the most basic, fundamental things that people expect their government to be able to deliver. It has been raised with me by families, tradespeople, small business operators and older members of our community who rely on a safe road network to get about their daily lives each and every day. Their frustration is not just that potholes exist, it is that the same roads have been deteriorating for years. The same problems are repeatedly reported, and the response amounts to little more than a temporary repair, if anything at all.

After almost 12 years of this tired Labor government the Premier has now been forced to acknowledge that the condition of Victoria’s roads is not good enough. On that point there is no disagreement. As my colleague pointed out earlier, ‘not good enough’ may be the understatement of the decade. Premier Carroll cannot speak about the condition of the road network as though –

Paul Mercurio: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, we have been talking quite a bit today about correct titles. I would like to remind the member of Nepean to use correct titles.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member is correct on titles. Can we take the names out of it, member for Nepean.

Anthony MARSH: I think the member for Hastings is a bit upset that we no longer get to have beers, because we cannot drive on the roads to get to Hastings. You would think that they would want us to differentiate between former premiers and the current Premier, but I guess they realise the integrity bodies going forward will have no teeth and it will not make a difference. The Premier has recently inherited this problem, and the Premier was himself the Minister for Roads and Road Safety between 2020 and 2022. He has been a senior member of this Labor government throughout the period in which the conditions of our roads have been the worst that we have ever seen. When a government has been in office for almost 12 years, the condition of the assets it is responsible for maintaining is part of its record. It is actually its legacy. There comes a point in which responsibility cannot be shifted to weather or individual contractors, who they are meant to hold accountable, or to some newly discovered maintenance backlog. The buck stops with this Labor government and this save-the-furniture Premier.

This year the scale of the problem has become impossible to ignore. In August motorists on the Princes Freeway near Bunyip were left stranded after striking large potholes. Vehicles suffered damaged tyres and wheels. The following day motorists on the Calder Freeway near Gisborne were confronted with a similar scene. These are major arterial routes and freeways. People should reasonably expect them to be safe and properly maintained. Instead motorists are increasingly approaching damaged sections of road not knowing whether a patch of water is simply standing water or concealing a defect capable of writing off their vehicle and putting them at great risk. We saw the government’s response to that reality in question time just today. The Auditor-General has now laid out in black and white what has happened to Victoria’s roads. In 2021, 39 per cent of the state road network was rated poor or very poor. By 2024 it was 48 per cent. Forty-eight per cent were poor or very poor. The gap between defects identified and defects actually fixed more than doubled between January 2025 and June this year. Yet when the Premier and the ministers were asked simple questions about those findings today, they refused to answer them – the same evasive response I have seen since I joined this place.

These are not just our numbers; these are the Victorian Auditor-General’s. Worse than that, today we saw that they sought to undermine the Auditor-General’s findings. If this government cannot even acknowledge the independent evidence about what has happened to our roads under its own watch, what hope is there that it will actually fix the problem? By the end of August the government was announcing that it intended to fix 500,000 potholes. That figure itself is an admission of the condition into which they have allowed our road network to fall. The Victorian road network did not reach this crisis point overnight. It was the cumulative consequence of maintenance deferred, resurfacing delayed and defects addressed reactively rather than before they became serious.

This is also very evident in my electorate of Nepean. Our communities are heavily dependent on the road network. Public transport options are limited or non-existent, as the member for Hastings is well aware, across much of the peninsula. People rely on their cars to go to work, take children to school or reach medical services. The community has repeatedly raised the condition of Point Nepean Road, Boneo Road, Frankston-Flinders Road, Bittern-Dromana Road and the Mornington Peninsula Freeway, among others. Eastbourne Road in Rosebud is another example, and one I know particularly well. During the Nepean by-election I struck a pothole in Eastbourne Road and blew a tyre. When I took it for repair, I was informed that my rim was destroyed and I was faced with an unexpected bill of almost $3500. To put salt in the wound, when I was driving into Parliament just recently I struck another pothole in the dark and rain on Moorooduc Highway – another $1200 repair bill. These events were costly and inconvenient, but what bothered me most was that there was nothing unusual about my own experience. A damaged tyre or wheel can mean an unexpected bill of hundreds if not thousands of dollars. For a tradesperson or a small business owner, it can also mean lost work. For an older resident travelling to an appointment, it can mean being stranded on the side of the road. Those are costs borne by ordinary Victorians when basic maintenance is not done properly.

It was partly out of frustration that I launched Labor’s Road to Ruin in July. The concept was straightforward: a member of the public can identify a pothole, upload a photograph and have the location recorded. It began on the peninsula and has since expanded across Victoria. I did this myself because I wanted people to have a transparent way of recording what they were encountering on our roads. Then at the end of August, this copycat Premier announced that if re-elected, his government would establish a taxpayer-funded website allowing Victorians to photograph potholes, request repairs and track repairs – what a novel idea; I wonder where he read that. That announcement rather neatly illustrates the problem with this government’s approach. Victoria does not lack mechanisms where people can report road defects. The department already receives reports, other reporting platforms exist, and the Road to Ruin website is available statewide. In fact those opposite might like to know that residents in 33 Labor-held electorates have already used the Road to Ruin website to report potholes: Niddrie, Dandenong, Box Hill, Carrum, Macedon, Ivanhoe and Bentleigh, just to name a few. This is not a Nepean problem. It is not even a problem just in non-Labor-held seats. It is a problem across the entire state, including in their own backyard.

Speaking of potholes, I have also become somewhat of an expert in – or perhaps a victim of – the VicRoads reporting system myself. In the course of reporting potholes to the department, the VicRoads website has crashed more times than I care to remember. Three of those crashes occurred just in the last two sitting days while I was trying to report potholes on behalf of my residents, and I am very happy to table some photos and screenshots of that if the Parliament would like to see them. Perhaps the government might like to investigate that, although according to the notice on the website they have got their best people working on it. There you go. Perhaps the Premier has engaged some prisoners to run IT as well.

Before the Premier spends taxpayers money on building another pothole reporting website, perhaps he could get working on the one that they already have, because the issue is not that this tired Labor government does not know where the potholes are, the issue is whether the potholes are repaired properly, whether the underlying road is maintained and whether the same section is allowed to fail again. That is why I wrote to the Premier last week. I should note that I did receive a response from the Premier’s office. It acknowledged my email and informed me that I might get a response within eight to 10 weeks if I am lucky. I live in hope, Premier. The Premier had spoken publicly about respecting taxpayers money, so I asked him to disclose what the proposed new website would cost before the government committed taxpayer money to it. I also made a very simple offer: he could use the one I have already made. I would far rather see that money directed into the roads themselves, as I am sure all Victorians would. In my local electorate, it could be put into resurfacing Eastbourne Road, put into Boneo Road or put into Point Nepean Road, because the problem is not a digital one, it is a physical one, and it is one with this tired Labor government.

A website cannot restore failed roads, it cannot clear drainage and it cannot repair shoulders or resurface an arterial road. Those things require a government that treats road maintenance as a serious responsibility rather than an issue that they have only just rediscovered when the deterioration has become impossible to ignore or there is an election around the corner. For too long the approach has been excessively reactive. Anyone responsible for maintaining an asset understands that early intervention matters. Once water penetrates a failing surface, the pavement begins to break apart and drainage problems are left unresolved, the eventual repair becomes more difficult and more costly.

Road maintenance is not especially glamorous, and resurfacing does not attract the same attention as a new infrastructure project. But it is one of the essential disciplines of a competent government, and today’s Auditor-General’s report could not illustrate that more clearly. We are now seeing this tired Labor government, in an attempt to compensate for years of deterioration, make a sudden escalation in announcements. That is why the Liberals and Nationals have set out a different approach. We have committed $5 billion over four years to repair Victoria’s road network and restore a proper program of preventative maintenance.

 Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (17:22): I do note that the opposition are talking a very big game when it comes to roads. But do you know what they are really good at? Cutting. That is what they are good at. They have already proposed $40 billion worth of cuts. So how are you going to deliver all these road repairs et cetera if you are going to slash and burn the economy and also put 30,000 jobs just down the drain, just like that? They would do it. They are good for it. Because last time they were in government, they promised that there would be no cuts to the public service, full stop. Then they cut $250 million per year from the public service.

Anthony Marsh: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, the member for Albert Park, like many before her, does not seem to realise we are talking about roads in this debate, so it would be good if she came back to the topic.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Your point of order is relevance? I am sure the member for Albert Park was going to be relevant to the MPI very, very soon.

Nina TAYLOR: I take your guidance, absolutely. It was merely to note that if you are going to talk a big game, you had better live up to it. I just do not have confidence they will, because last time 4128 public sector jobs were cut and not replaced between 2011 and 2013. They cut a billion dollars from our health system and went to war with our nurses and ambos. They cut $1.2 billion from our TAFEs, closing 22 campuses and sacking over 3000 staff.

I also heard the member opposite sort of mocking prisoners doing any kind of – oh, actually he thought that they might be running the IT system. I thought that was in poor taste, because we know that part of rehabilitation has been to enable certain prisoners who have been on low-level offences and are close to their time out of incarceration to develop skills such as weeding and roadside maintenance. I did think that offhand comment was fairly below the bar. But they are laughing because rehabilitation is not important to those opposite. Mocking and being so patronising in this situation is actually quite disrespectful.

But anyway, coming back to that topic of roads, I am very happy to speak to that. We know that fixing roads is this government’s priority. The Carroll Labor government announced a further $352 million to double the number of potholes we are removing from 250,000 to 500,000. We want to fix also – I want to add a further limb to that – the condition of our roads. That is why a re-elected Carroll Labor government will develop a plan to bring state road maintenance programs back in-house; let you report potholes and see what repairs we are making and when; make everyone accountable, including government, including through compensation; and use local knowledge and let local teams prioritise local repairs. Surely those opposite would be in favour of that. That seems an infinitely practical and appropriate mechanism in terms of the overall good maintenance of our roads. Also, as I was speaking to earlier, it includes getting minimum-security prisoners on the job as part of supporting overall processes as well.

I should say there are a number of major road upgrades. I will only speak to a couple of those because I suspect others in the chamber have already alluded to those. We are also investing, for instance, $550 million to widen the Western Freeway and upgrade key interchanges. No doubt that is going to make a massive difference for Victorians who live in those areas. But it is interesting, because when we are talking about cuts that those opposite would most certainly live up to – I am absolutely confident that they would deliver on those cuts – what would they impact? They would impact Victorians on so many levels – frontline services without a doubt, whether it is in health, in education or in our police force as well – because you cannot slash and burn $40 billion worth without that outcome. We saw that report earlier today – and I am happy to provide it for Hansard – from the Australia Institute that the net effect would be 30,000 less public sector workers. I know those opposite often will refer to public sector workers merely as waste – they are just waste and they do not see them as human beings – but actually they work really hard and perform many important roles. If you are talking about service delivery, and certainly building and maintaining roads is about service delivery, then having the human beings in place to deliver on those services is relevant.

This is why I was discussing cuts from the outset, because you cannot on the one hand say ‘Please, please, please do X, Y and Z to the roads’ but also say ‘We’re going to slash and burn the actual numbers of people who work and help with maintenance and other things and deliver these services.’ So that was the origin. That was the genesis of that argument, because I think it actually makes sense, hopefully not only in my head but in broader terms. I think Victorians would get that as well, because let us face it, many public sector workers are Victorians. They are fellow Victorians working and helping to serve the community. So seeing them as the other, as some strange entity out there, might emotionally help one distance oneself from these kinds of cuts, but the reality is that they are mums and dads, they are our neighbours and they are people who we interact with every day of the week. Therefore seeing them as human beings and fellow Victorians, not some waste or some pest that we should rid from Victoria, is probably not unhelpful as well. This is why I was raising that argument. I hope that that goes some way to backing in the various contentions that I have put before the chamber today.

But I think the other thing that is quite interesting when we are talking about how we manage money, whenever we are looking at maintenance, whether it is road maintenance or otherwise, we have to think about the investments – things like energy. Energy is one of the major costs, certainly, but because we have invested in state-owned energy, this has given certainty to the market and helped to accelerate the investment in renewables. We know that renewable energy is actually the cheapest form of energy and also the most expedient to implement. We know that since the inception of the Victorian energy upgrades program, something like 2.4 million Victorian households have embraced this and we know literally thousands of businesses as well. So when you are talking about how money is managed and the investments that a state makes and thinking about, ‘Okay. Well, they’re talking a big game about roads et cetera,’ there is not only the slashing and burning. If they are going to, for instance, go all the way with One Nation on nuclear, that will cost an absolute bomb, pardon the pun, because that will require taxpayer funds and many, many, many, many years to substantiate.

I was actually on a nuclear inquiry a few years ago, and actually I think it was NuScale that was wanting to set up small modular reactors and roll them out, but it was a little bit embarrassing because halfway through that inquiry they had to pull it.

Roma Britnell: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker: relevance.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It has been a wideranging debate, and I think the member has drawn a line between her arguments and the debate, but I encourage her to stick maybe a little closer to the MPI than what she just was.

Nina TAYLOR: Fair enough. It is duly noted, but I was just talking about when we are being realistic about how a government spends money and what money it has available. If you are going to invest billions and billions of dollars in nuclear energy that cannot be delivered for maybe 20 or 30 ‍years, if that –

Roma Britnell: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I do understand that you said relevance was a reasonable point of order. We are still talking about nuclear and something, I do not know, but not roads.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member did draw a line earlier between the spending and the topic, and I encourage the member, without telling the member what to say, to maybe be a little more relevant to the MPI in question.

Nina TAYLOR: These are discussions that the Leader of the Opposition can have with One Nation, because that is the only way they would be able to get to government, so they would have to negotiate these kinds of expenses.

Roma Britnell: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, perhaps she does not know what a road is.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not think that was actually a point of order in the end.

Nina TAYLOR: I think that comment says more about the member for South-West Coast than it does about me.

 Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (17:32): I am very pleased to speak on this matter of public importance today, because there is nothing more important in Polwarth today than the appalling, absolutely atrocious state of the roads. The MPI today is:

That this house notes the poor condition of Victorian roads and the impact on Victorian motorists –

and I will just add in there businesses, farmers and transport operators –

of damage to their vehicles, reduced freight efficiency and diminished productivity and calls for a return to a genuine preventative maintenance program to arrest the decline of one of the state’s biggest –

and most needed –

assets.

The roads in this region in Victoria and throughout Polwarth are just terrible. In my own family, my wife again smashed a windscreen just yesterday, the second one in a month. It comes on top of the fantastic Polwarth campaign express trailer, which is rocketing all around Polwarth whenever it can, having its axle broken only a fortnight ago because of the numerous potholes. One might think it a conspiracy on behalf of this government to shut down good campaigning on behalf of the member for Polwarth now and to try and keep him trapped in Colac. But no, even the state of the roads is not going to stop me getting out and about around the various highways and byways of Polwarth. Of course those potentially fantastic road networks – the Hamilton Highway, the Princes Highway, the Great Ocean Road, the Cobden-Stonyford Road – that bring all of the fantastic Western Star butter through to the city and fresh milk for the Woolworths supermarkets are important roads, but they are costing Victorian people on the shelves of the supermarkets and making it cost more to get grain that we make our bread out of. It is costing more to get our lamb chops from the massive processing facility in Colac to the supermarkets so we can celebrate things like Australia Day. All these things are costing Victorians more because the cost of freight is going through the roof because transport operators are just wearing the cost of this terrible road situation.

The Auditor-General has an important function and plays a really important role, and last sitting week the Auditor-General told us something we did not know. The Auditor-General told us last week, a fortnight ago, that Victorians were paying a secret tax on public transport. That was a really crucial role from the Auditor-General, putting light on the dark, murky financial state that we live in here in Victoria. This week the Auditor-General has come out with another report, a fine publication, the Maintaining State Roads report. That is a really important document, but, guess what, it did not tell us one thing we did not already know. I will quote its main finding:

The overall condition of Victoria’s state roads is deteriorating.

There it is, from the Auditor-General. It is not just the member for Polwarth or the member for South-West Coast or anyone else in western Victoria talking about the parlous state – it is a fact. The Auditor-General goes on to say:

The department … met its publicly reported performance targets in recent years, but the targets give no meaningful insight into road condition or the effectiveness of road maintenance.

Every single farmer or anyone who knows diddly squat about road maintenance and road conditions will tell you that this government has completely underperformed. Anyone who knows anything about roads will tell you it is about road surface, it is about keeping the water off and it is about keeping the roadsides clear. The roads are designed for vehicular movement, not water flow. That is something this government has completely abandoned its knowledge of. Quite simply, what we are seeing now is a wholesale destruction of one of the most important assets. We have seen destruction of all sorts of things under this government, including the Commonwealth Games that we could no longer afford. We have seen the abandonment of the Torquay hospital – all sorts of things that this government promises. Since the Roman times, since the Romans conquered the world, you needed good roads. Well, Victoria is not going to conquer very much when we are down to 40 kilometres an hour on our highways and byways. In fact, since I have been in this place we have opened the Princes Highway West, a duplicated road that for huge swathes now is down to 80 kilometres an hour. That was built as a 110 kilometre-an-hour road, and it is so dangerous and in such poor condition that that no longer is possible.

Not only has the Auditor-General been researching the parlous state of our roads, but I have also taken the opportunity to do a bit of budget analysis myself. The government has been big on the fact that they are going to eliminate potholes. They are giving an extra $300 million this year to eliminate 500,000 potholes. Quite frankly, no-one is out counting the frigging potholes. Quite seriously, you would get to 500,000 potholes just in my own electorate. It is a pointless measure. People want smooth, safe surfaces. They want white lines that you can see in the rain. They want wire rope barriers that are not all busted to bits on the sides of the road. We already forked out $1 billion for those over the last few years; you would think you could look after that asset.

Every element of the road network is in decay. Why is it in decay? Well, one of the previous speakers on our side pointed to the fact that you must replace or have a plan to replace road surfaces on a rolling budget about every 10 years. That is the standard we have always had in Victoria. Way back in 2021–22, at the start of the COVID era, we were replacing our road surfaces at around the 14-year mark, so every 14 years. That is underperforming by four years, but it is within cooee. Do you know what that has blown out to now? I will just run through the last six years of this government. We went from 14 ‍years, then we jumped to 20 years and then lo and behold in the year 2023–24 we spent so little on road maintenance that at that rate, if the government had continued its 2023–24 road replacement, we would have been at 416 years. That means this government had some harebrained idea we could put some tarmac down in country Victoria and it would last 416 years before they had to replace it again. That is preposterously insane. However, the government is copping a little bit of flak because of the hard work of the opposition and those raising regularly the state of our roads. They have improved it from 416 years. It is now only about 60 to 65 years. Can you imagine that we are wanting road laid today to last 60 years without any preventative maintenance?

If you need evidence of a broken, busted state unable to look after its basic infrastructure, then that is the sole indicator. It is evidenced here in the Auditor-General’s report. It is a fact from the government’s own budget. This is not misleading data; this is how parlous it has become. Why is that road replacement so important, particularly for rural and regional Victorians? Because when you have a heart attack or a stroke in a community like mine you have to travel for over an hour – in some parts of my electorate two hours – in an ambulance on roads that are not fit to transport people safely. It is not fair that ambulances are less safe. It is not fair that transport operators trying to compete with transport coming from other states have twice the repair and maintenance bills and costs of any other transport operator. These issues are really important to country people.

The lack of maintenance and care for the roads is simply not good enough, which is why, in conclusion, I raise the point that under a fresh start with the Liberal–Nationals there is a solution, there is an end in sight, there is a plan – something this government has not had for 12 years: a real plan to improve roads. We will fund considerably more – 25 per cent more than what this government has committed under its record funding. We will commit more and guarantee to the community that that will be spent. We will better resource our local shires. In my own municipality we are talking in excess of $6 million over the next term to the local councils to fix those local roads and fix those local bridges. That will make a difference to my community. We will have the main state roads, the main highways and byways and the local council roads improved. It is part of a plan that says ‘Roads in country Victoria matter. Roads in country Victoria are important’, and a Liberal–National government will respect that and return the funding that is required to keep a first-class, First World road system in place. It will be safer for our communities. It will transport the things that we produce and manufacture in the regions to market more successfully. It will mean visitors and tourists can make choices. It will mean that people will not be scared to take basic drives on the roads in country Victoria.

 Alison MARCHANT (Bellarine) (17:42): It is a pleasure to speak about this particular topic today, about roads, being a regional member of Parliament here in this place too and someone who does travel a lot around Victoria and actually has farmland in the member for Polwarth’s electorate. Travelling around in my community, roads are certainly an important issue that is raised with me. I am really pleased to be able to speak to this.

In addition, it was a privilege to sit on and chair the Economy and Infrastructure Committee’s inquiry only a few years ago on road users and vulnerable road users post COVID. I am going to talk a little bit about that and what the statistics were and what the evidence was showing. It was a real privilege to be on that committee, because it certainly gave me an understanding around road trauma, police, first responders and some expert witnesses. Also we heard about the impact that obviously road trauma has on our community. It is probably an inquiry that I will not forget and one that I learned a lot from. I have become very passionate about road safety ever since that inquiry.

When we talk about roads and we are talking about safety, we often talk about traffic, congestion, potholes – I have heard it today – travel times, upgrades, but ultimately I want to talk about people because I think that that is what we are here about, being a service to our communities. We are talking about real people – people who are driving their kids to school, people who are cyclists on our roads, people who maybe have learner drivers in their family. I have got one of those now, so I am learning a lot about being a patient – what would I call myself? – supervisor alongside a learner driver. It is about real people. We want to make sure that those people get to go home safely every time that they are on our roads. I believe that this conversation needs to be a lot bigger than just bitumen. It is about how we drive on our roads. It is the way that we design our roads and enforce our laws.

Talking a little bit about that inquiry that we were conducting, we certainly heard from experts that post COVID people were making some choices on our road that were quite risky – more people deliberately running red lights, more people drink and drug driving, more people making decisions to take risks on our roads, more speeding. Even though we would expect our road toll to go down post COVID and there were less people on the road, what we were finding was that did not happen because of the risk-taking that was actually involved on our roads, and that was very concerning. It was a bit of a shock to everyone, but we were also seeing more people not wearing seatbelts in their cars, even some people putting the seatbelt behind them and clicking it in so the car did not beep at them anymore but sitting on the seatbelt, which is absolutely an incredible behaviour. But those are choices that people were making.

I particularly want to talk about that inquiry. We made some recommendations in that inquiry and education was certainly a big part of it. We can tell people to slow down, we can tell people not to be on their phones, we can tell people to be safer around pedestrians and cyclists, but it is also very clearly about how we design our roads and our infrastructure, which then influences the way people behave on our roads. It influences the way that people might slow down in certain areas because they can see they are entering a shopping strip. We have designs in the Bellarine community where we have now installed wombat crossings, which are not for wombats, as zebra crossings are not for zebras. They are raised pedestrian crossings. That has helped slow down particularly busy intersections in my community to ensure that students in particular can get to school and to sporting fields and recreation. I see young people and older people using those wombat crossings now that were not previously there. They are able to navigate intersections safely. I do get a little bit of feedback from communities, from drivers particularly, saying that they do not like the wombat crossings. Well, you only have to slow down. That person that is cycling or a child that is walking across is a road user as well. They are allowed to be there. They are allowed to be safely crossing our road infrastructure. I tell people they need to be patient and slow down at these intersections because that is the point of them.

The design of our roads is a really important component. We have talked about in this place and others have argued on both sides here about maintaining our roads and the condition of our roads, and I know that is a very important part of this conversation. As I have said, I am a regional member of Parliament and it is certainly essential to my communities. We have farming communities as well on the Bellarine, and many will have tractors out on their roads. We understand this is really important, and that is why this government has continued to invest in road upgrades and maintenance. We have had billions of dollars each budget for road maintenance, and we have announced further money, $352 million, for road maintenance, which will be doubling the amount of potholes that we can be working on. That is about priorities, that is about things that matter.

I just want to also point out, though, that in my community they are really good at reporting potholes. We have had some pretty awful wet weather and potholes have opened up, but they are so good at reporting and our maintenance crews have been coming out the next day and they have been filling those potholes and resurfacing them, and we are making sure that we are getting on to it immediately. I would like to thank my community for reporting as soon as they see a hazard on our roads, which is fantastic. I tell people to do that. Otherwise, how does the maintenance crew know where to go?

We need to make sure that we invest also in these bigger road investments so we can futureproof this state. We know that there is more traffic on our roads. The Bellarine particularly is growing. We know that the roads are taking more traffic. We need to invest in futureproofing this state, and we do that. This side of the house knows how to do infrastructure, knows how to build our roads, and we certainly get on with that and prioritise that.

We recently announced, on the Bellarine link, that under a new Carroll Labor government we will start the work on stage 1 of the Bellarine link, an absolutely incredible project that will reduce traffic and how it moves around Geelong city, but also help those growing suburbs. Potentially stage 2 will link up to the Bellarine, which then would take our trucks and our larger traffic from the Bellarine over around Geelong.

We have also announced recently that under a Carroll Labor government we will upgrade Murradoc Road in the Bellarine. This is a really busy part of Murradoc Road, where we now see Coles, Aldi, KFC, banks and industrial estates, where people are going to do most of their shopping. That is a really important part of the Bellarine that needs some safety upgrades, because it used to be quite a back road. It is no longer that, and we need to make sure that that is safe. And I am not just talking about cars – it is about making sure pedestrians and cyclists can get around the area and that part of the road.

Recognising that we are about to go to an election, it is about priorities and it is about asking the question about which government into the future is going to be able to do the things that it says that it will do. We have to be absolutely honest with Victorians about what it is that we can deliver. We are being told that the opposition can deliver a $5 billion roads plan – that they can rebuild and they can fix roads – but they also say that they want to find savings of tens of billions of dollars. Now, an independent analysis – we have talked about this today – by the Australia Institute, who have looked at the numbers, has said that that cannot happen, that this is going to be a simple question of priorities. But also, do the figures stack up? Obviously it has been made clear in this report that they do not.

I know Victorians and the people of Bellarine deserve more than just a list of promises. They actually need to know that it can happen. You cannot promise billions of dollars in savings but then promise the world. You cannot promise that you are going to be able to simultaneously put new roads in when you are also saying you are going to reduce the amount of spend in our budget. Here is where the credibility of the opposition comes into question: you cannot cut billions and then spend billions and somehow have some money left over. That is not a financial plan, that is actually just a promise that relies on Victorians not looking at the money.

 Emma KEALY (Lowan) (17:52): I would like to continue from the contribution by the member for Bellarine, because when you are talking about being honest with Victorians, when you are talking about lacking credibility about what you say and what you actually do, we have had a marvellous document tabled in the Parliament today that would be exhibit A, VAGO’s Maintaining State Roads report, which provides an absolutely damning report on Labor’s cuts to the road asset management budget over 12 long years. Member for Bellarine, this is where the credibility question lies – with the Labor government, who have forgotten that if they are going to stand in this place and say, ‘We’re going to fix the roads. Look at the wonderful roads that you’ve got,’ there are members of the Victorian community who are driving on these pothole-riddled roads every single day. They are people who have to use these roads. They cannot take a back road to avoid a pothole, because the back road is just as riddled with potholes as the normal route that they would go. It does not matter whether you are taking your kids to school, you are driving a school bus or you are driving a grain truck to get your produce from farm gate to market to feed Victorians and feed Australians, in the country we all have to deal with Labor’s utter failure to manage Victoria’s road network.

Let us talk about the most important thing of all: rural and regional Victoria have not got their fair share under a Labor government. They have never, ever delivered rural and regional Victoria their fair share. Eighty-two per cent of this state’s road network is in rural and regional Victoria, yet Labor only delivers 70 per cent of the roads budget to this area – yet another example where Labor simply overlooks the people who live in rural and regional Victoria. That is what the Nationals will always stand for. We know that 25 per cent of the population live in rural and regional Victoria, so we deserve 25 per cent of the new infrastructure funding, and that is exactly what the Nationals will deliver.

We are sick of people like the Premier, who, when he was the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, stood in this place and said that there was a record investment in country road maintenance. At that very same time, at that point in time in June 2022, there had been an almost $200 million cut to the roads budget. So when Labor members in this place raise issues about credibility and not delivering what you say, talk to your Premier, because when he was the minister for roads he promised things that were simply not true. It is the Auditor-General of Victoria who has uncovered this in the report that was tabled today. From the contributions by the Labor MPs in this place, including rural and regional MPs, I cannot believe they are collapsing and saying, ‘Oh, the roads are great. Don’t worry. If there’s a pothole, we’ll just fill it up.’ It is blown out the next day, but no-one cares about that. You only care about the headline and the media release about the numbers that go in. Even then you are not honest about it. The Labor government is never honest with Victorians, but it is catching up with all of you. It is catching up with all of you, because there are mounting reports from authorities like the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office.

But most importantly, rural and regional Victorians have had enough of being told what to think when their experience each and every day is very, very different. Rural and regional Victorians are sick of driving on terrible roads. We are sick of hearing about the near misses. I heard about a near miss – it was a hit actually, a collision last week where a four-wheel drive bounced on a pothole and sideswiped a school bus. These are people putting their lives at risk because the roads are so dangerous. They are critically dangerous. Every single day there is a near miss. I live in Horsham. When I travel to Melbourne every week I drive up the Western Highway. At the moment I count how many cars I see with their hazard lights on on the side of the highway because they have damaged their tyres or rims on the way through. Last Sunday it was four cars, for those who are making any notes about that.

We know that there is a critical problem when the condition of our roads in country Victoria is a cost-of-living issue. It is costing Victorians more and more every day, with their tyres being blown out and with fractured rims. There are people who have had critical issues where their cars are pulled over on the side of the road and they are missing appointments, they are missing funerals and they are missing opportunities to go to the doctor and to get surgery. This has a flow-on effect. It is important to rural and regional people, and Labor have not got it right.

But most importantly, when the Premier was the minister for roads he lied to Victorians. He said it was a record investment into roads, and it was a $200 million cut. It was a 25 per cent cut. That does not cut it. Nobody believes that this Premier is any different to the previous two premiers we have had under a Labor government. We all see through it.

It does not matter whether you are in my electorate, where we now have over 50 per cent of our roads in either poor or very poor condition; it does not matter whether you are travelling on the Henty Highway, the Hamilton Highway, the Glenelg Highway, the Western Highway, the Wimmera Highway or some of our key connecting roads like the Warracknabeal-Birchip Road, the Ararat to Glenthompson road or the Mortlake-Ararat Road – it does not matter where you are – our roads are simply dangerous. It is not fair on our local people. It is not fair on the police and ambulance services, the CFA and the SES crews who have to travel on these roads and particularly those emergency services who have to turn up when there has been a tragic accident.

The Nationals will invest $5 billion into our state road network. The Nationals will invest $288 million into our local roads through our country roads and bridges program. This means $54 million for my electorate of Lowan alone. It does not matter if you are travelling on our state roads or our local roads, you deserve a safe road. That is exactly what the Nationals will deliver. We will make sure that we fix our roads. We will make them safe, but most importantly, we will ensure that people in rural and regional Victoria get their fair share of the roads funding in the state of Victoria.

 Belinda WILSON (Narre Warren North) (17:59): I have a little bit of time to talk about the MPI ‍– fabulous. I have got a lot to say about my roads, because I have got incredible roads in Narre Warren North. In fact we have just recently redone the Princes Highway, as the member for Berwick would know because it has gone straight through parts of his electorate as well, and when re-elected next year we are going to be doing Hallam Road, which is going to be incredible because it is going to give us dual highway on both sides of that road. That is going to make a huge difference to our community and is something that we have asked for over the last few years, so we are very, very excited about that. I think the state of our roads in the south-east is really coming along quite great, isn’t it, member for Cranbourne?

Emma Kealy: On a point of order, I would like to table the Victorian Auditor-General’s Maintaining State Roads report today, which shows that that is –

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

Wayne Farnham: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, members are meant to be factual in this place, and that clearly is not being factual.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member of Narracan knows all members are expected to be factual at all times.

Belinda WILSON: I actually take that as quite offensive, member for Narracan. I was being factual about my electorate. We have got incredible roads, and the ones that need repairing are done at a very efficient rate when I speak to the minister’s office. Minister Hamer is an incredible minister for roads, an engineer who is doing an incredible job making great changes – he is walking into the chamber – and we are very, very proud to have him as part of our group.

The SPEAKER: The time has come for me to interrupt business in accordance with the resolution of the house today for the members for Gippsland East and Malvern to make their valedictory statements. I remind visitors in the gallery that no photography or filming is allowed. You may note that I have taken out the no clapping, hugging and kissing notion.

Before we commence, can I acknowledge former member for Rodney Paul Weller and former member for Euroa Steph Ryan in the gallery today.