Wednesday, 20 March 2024

Statements on tabled papers and petitions

Department of Treasury and Finance

Budget papers 2022–23

Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:20): I rise to speak on the state budget for 2022–23 and the budget for road maintenance in this state. Road maintenance in this state is in an appalling condition, and that is because we have seen the budget cut from $870 million to just $442 million since 2020–21. In fact in last year’s budget alone there was about a 25 per cent budget cut to road maintenance, and 45 per cent has been cut out of that budget since 2020. This has led to our state’s roads being in quite a dangerous condition.

An article in the Weekly Times recently speaks about a survey that was conducted by the National Transport Research Organisation. That survey came back to say that 91 per cent of our state’s 8400-kilometre network of regional roads was deemed to be in poor or very poor condition. That is appalling – 91 per cent in poor or very poor condition. It went on to say that just 9 per cent of those roads were actually classed as being in fair condition. None of the roads were rated as being in good or very good condition. We all know that the state of the roads leads to road safety issues if they are not maintained. Last year Victoria had a dreadful road toll, with 295 lives being lost on our roads. In my electorate alone in just four accidents there were 18 lives lost: five at the Labuan Road accident just out of Strathmerton, five lost in Daylesford, four in the Mansfield accident and four at Chiltern. That is just four accidents and 18 deaths. That is a shocking, shocking statistic.

We want to see our roads in country Victoria made much safer. We all know that they are not safe at the moment. We drive in dreadful conditions; we dodge potholes everywhere. Country Victorians have two sayings. One is, ‘We used to drive on the left of the road, but now we drive on what’s left of the road.’ The other one is, ‘The government require us to have cars that are roadworthy, but the roads are definitely not carworthy.’ Instead of actually fixing our roads Labor’s solution to these very poor conditions on our roads is just to permanently reduce the speed limits on the roads. For country Victorians who are travelling vast distances to get places this is not a solution. We cannot be driving everywhere at 40 or 60 kilometres per hour. We need decent roads that allow us to travel at a decent speed to get from point A to point B in a decent time.

Victorians are paying the price for Labor’s mismanagement with damage to their cars as well. We have seen a 414 per cent increase in claims by drivers for damage to their vehicles on the roads in the last three years. This just shows you how many additional cars are being damaged because of the condition of the roads. We know that Labor cannot manage money, and we know that Labor cannot manage projects; Labor cannot manage our roads either. Victorians are paying the price for the mismanagement of this Labor government, which is seriously incompetent when it comes to every level of government, whether it is financial mismanagement, whether it is project mismanagement or whether it is roads and maintenance mismanagement. This government has a gold star in mismanagement.