Wednesday, 12 November 2025

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (23:24): (2090) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety. The action that I seek is for the minister to commit to funding the full duplication of Donnybrook Road from the Hume Freeway to Epping Road, including the flyover bridge over the Hume Freeway, in the 2026–27 state budget. Donnybrook Road is one of Labor’s worst planning failures. Greedy for extra tax revenue, Labor approved thousands of new homes along Donnybrook Road but totally failed to first upgrade Donnybrook Road from a single-lane farm track to a double-lane arterial road in order to handle all the extra traffic. The road is now chronically congested, with notoriously bad traffic that traps locals, making them late for work, late for school, late for kids sporting events and late home for dinner in the evening. In one incident a truck crash forced the whole road to be closed for hours. Without any alternative entry point to housing estates, residents were unable to return to their homes. One of my constituents was stuck at the Epping Road roundabout with her toddler and unable to get back to breastfeed her baby, who was at home and screaming for her mum. She then had to go to hospital with the toddler, who had become dehydrated after being stuck in a hot car for hours. This is just one example of the chaos caused by Labor’s complete mismanagement of suburban expansion in the northern growth areas.

I have raised this issue in Parliament many times, but I have still not received a satisfactory answer that commits to fully duplicating Donnybrook Road all the way to Epping Road. When I asked the government to fully fund the road duplication in the 2025–26 budget, the minister would not commit to the upgrade and said that planning work would inform the decision about whether or not to proceed with a financial investment. This answer raises serious concerns that the Allan Labor government may not invest in the full duplication of Donnybrook Road, which will shock and outrage locals, who tell me that traffic congestion has had a terrible impact on their quality of life. They moved to this area to live the Australian dream, but Labor’s planning failures are turning the experience into a nightmare.

The Labor government thinks it can get away with just adding a connection to the Hume Freeway at Gunns Gully Road, but that interchange is not expected to be finished until at least 2028, and construction is already six months late, with no start date in sight. When it finally arrives, the interchange will only connect Cloverton to the freeway and will not help the residents of other housing estates along Donnybrook Road who still do not have a single alternative entry or exit to their suburbs. The federal government has announced work to upgrade the Mitchell Street roundabout, but that project will not add any extra lanes to the on-ramps or the bridge over the Hume Freeway and will not duplicate Donnybrook Road to Epping Road. The single-lane bottleneck causing chronic congestion on this old farm track looks set to continue for years without any relief in sight. Labor’s refusal to fully fund duplication of Donnybrook Road proves they have turned a deaf ear to the cries of local residents.