Wednesday, 6 April 2022

Adjournment

Mr LEANE (Eastern Metropolitan—Minister for Local Government, Minister for Suburban Development, Minister for Veterans) (17:25): I move:

That the house do now adjourn.

Middle Road, Truganina

Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (17:25): (1868) I wish to raise a matter this evening on the adjournment for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety. The minister will recall—well, he may not, but hopefully he will—that I raised the other day, it might have even been yesterday, that the Melton City Council has started a campaign: ‘Fix Our Roads’. This particular road that I refer to today is a VicRoads road—it needs major fixing, let me assure you, and urgent fixing at that—and that is Middle Road in Truganina. I would like to thank Wendy Bitans from Truganina. She is a regular correspondent on a number of subjects. Wendy has been kind enough to point out to me something that I may have let slip from my memory, and that is the state of Middle Road in Truganina. This would have to be one of the worst roads in Victoria. It is just a shocker. It feeds on and off Hopkins Road, and I am told by Mrs Bitans this is a designated fire track. How the hell a fire truck could get down there I have no idea. It is absolutely shocking; it is shocking.

We really need the minister to take some pretty decisive action on this, particularly with the budget coming up. It would seem to me this should be a priority for an area that is growing so rapidly, an area that was once—yes, it was once—country. It now has huge numbers of cars and trucks and various other vehicles using the roads, and we need the appropriate attention from government to make sure that these roads are maintained—not just maintained but built up to the standard that they should be. Particularly Middle Road is extremely important. If anything happens on Hopkins Road, well, Middle Road is it. That is the bottom line. If huge numbers of cars were to be diverted onto Middle Road, I fear to think what might happen. It would not be a pleasant thing.

I join Mrs Bitans and indeed many local people in the Truganina area in asking the minister, as a matter of urgency, to fix Middle Road, to bring it up to a reasonable standard, to bring it out of the century before last and to bring it up to a standard that we would find acceptable and reasonable in 2022.