Thursday, 14 November 2024

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (18:54): (1297) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action I seek relates to Donnybrook Road in my electorate and asks for the minister to finally duplicate Donnybrook Road.

Members interjecting.

Evan MULHOLLAND: It might be for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, perhaps. It is an absolute disgrace. This will be the 12th time I have stood in this place and raised this issue in some form, but the number of times my constituents have raised it with me is countless. One member from the other side of the house today said that Donnybrook Road is all I ever speak about and I should move on. I will not move on from advocating for my constituents, who are on a daily basis stuck in traffic chaos due to Donnybrook Road. If the members for both Kalkallo and Yan Yean bothered to take a look at this major road in their electorates – they would need to actually visit their electorates to do so – they would see how desperately it is in need of duplication.

This road is symbolic of Labor’s neglect of and contempt for the north. As local resident Helen Franks from Olivine estate wrote to me recently:

Again people in the outer northern suburbs of Donnybrook and Woodstock are disadvantaged and isolated.

Helen informed me that last week – and I received several emails from residents last week because of this – there was a two-truck accident at Serrata Avenue that resulted in traffic being stopped, and people were literally locked in or out of their estates for 24 hours. These are Third World conditions – locked in and out of their estates for 24 hours. Meanwhile the government are spending $216 billion building the Suburban Rail Loop tunnel in the eastern suburbs.

You can tell why I am angry: because my residents are angry about this. If Labor MPs for those areas were doing their jobs and advocating for residents like I do, like Ms Lovell has on numerous occasions, advocating for Donnybrook Road, then the safety of these roads would be better. You have got an old farm track on one side which is becoming increasingly dangerous, but on the Mickleham side you have got a nice multilane arterial road that was duplicated by the Liberal Party, because we did a developer contribution agreement back when we were in government which enabled infrastructure to be built as residents moved in, not years after. The government are building tens of thousands of homes – and they are still going – and they have not duplicated this road. The constituents of the outer north deserve safe, accessible and fit-for-purpose roads, so I repeat my action for the minister: duplicate Donnybrook Road.