Thursday, 10 September 2026

 Paul HAMER (Box Hill – Minister for Roads and Road Safety) (14:15): The Carroll Labor government is focused on fixing our roads. The Premier has made it clear that we will not admire potholes, we will fix them, and that is exactly what we are doing. We are investing an additional $352 million, and that is on top of our existing record $1 billion investment in road maintenance. We will fill 500,000 potholes this year, more than double what others have promised to fill in any given year. We will also double the amount of road repairs that we do this year. That means we will fix the equivalent of more than 340 MCGs, or more than 1200 NFL fields, at more than 1000 locations across the state. And we are getting on with the job right now, not in four years time. Our hardworking road crews will work more than 3.5 million hours to fix our roads. This includes fixing signs and barriers, cleaning rubbish and removing graffiti.

Victorians know all of this work will be at risk if those opposite look after our roads. After all – let us compare and contrast – last time they were in government they cut $160 million from the road maintenance budget and slashed 450 jobs. Independent economists have confirmed that implementing $40 billion of cuts would mean cutting nearly 32,000 jobs – cutting the people that manage the road network every hour of every day, cutting the people that plan, prioritise and inspect our road maintenance program. Those cuts will hurt working people in Victoria and will devastate our roads. Our roads cannot be fixed and new roads cannot be built when making $40 billion of cuts. Only Labor has a plan to fix our roads.

Danny O’Brien: Speaker, on a point of order, the minister is required to be factual. He has not mentioned the $200 million cut on roads by the Premier.

The SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: The member for Gippsland East is warned.

Paul HAMER: Only Labor has a plan to fix our roads. The Liberal–One Nation coalition will cut roads funding and hurt working people.