Tuesday, 29 July 2025

Western Highway duplication

Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (19:11): (1769) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety. It concerns the Western Highway, particularly near Buangor, halfway between Ararat and Beaufort. On 5 July an incident occurred at Buangor on the unduplicated section, where a car veered into another, resulting in a fatality. On 18 July, a car and a truck collided on the Western Highway again, near Warwick, not far from Buangor on the Ararat side, again on the unduplicated part of the Western Highway.

Any time a fatality occurs on our roads, the loss of life is a tragedy. They are loved members of families, contributors to communities, employees and volunteers in country communities gone and sadly taken. For years this stretch of road was supposed to be duplicated. I was in my early 20s when the duplication of the Western Highway started – under a Liberal government, mind you – but the political willpower to continue this important duplication and associated safety upgrades appears to have been lost.

I do not doubt those in the government would see this tragic loss of life as exactly that – tragic. That is not in question. But when government projects stall and the safety upgrades associated with those upgrades stall, there is going to be an impact. Even the member for Ripon, who is a great source of content, has slammed her own government for a lack of action. In a letter to the minister, which she shared publicly, she said:

This stretch of road is considered one of the most dangerous in Australia, with three lives lost between Buangor and Ararat this year …

The frequency of fatal collisions is having a profound impact on our emergency services, as well as the Ararat community more broadly.

…

We must do all we can to improve road safety between Buangor and Ararat, so that no more lives are lost.

Need we remind anyone that this is a government MP writing to her own minister, highlighting inaction from the government? Don’t you think she should just turn around in the party room and say, ‘Minister, come and have a look. We’ve got a real big issue’? No, she had to write a big letter and point it out to everyone. What was the result? Nothing actually changed. It is PR spin wrapped up and packaged as though the government is actually doing something. I even had a bus driver on the phone to me today saying that there was nothing going on and they were concerned.

The action that I seek from the minister is simple: fix the Western Highway, stop making excuses, stop the rubbish PR games, start putting shovels in the ground, get the graders out – do your job and duplicate the Western highway as was promised.