Thursday, 19 February 2026

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (18:48): (2348) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action that I seek is for the minister to immediately release the final designs for the duplication of Donnybrook Road and the bridge over the Hume Freeway. For the last few years I have been continuously calling for the Allan Labor government to commit funding for the full duplication of Donnybrook Road from the Hume Freeway to Epping Road, including duplicating the bridge over the Hume, but Labor has refused every call to commit to the full duplication of Donnybrook Road. Instead we have been told over and over again that planning is in progress. While the planning stage drags on seemingly without end, more housing developments are going up along Donnybrook Road, which is the only entry and exit point for all of those housing estates along that road. The road suffers chronic congestion every single day at peak times, with local residents stuck in traffic for up to an hour just to get out of their housing estates and off Donnybrook Road. A boom in new housing approved under Labor’s planning laws is only making the congestion worse, yet the Allan Labor government is showing no urgency at all in addressing the problems caused by its massive planning failure.

When I asked last year for the government to commit to fully duplicating Donnybrook Road, the minister told me that Major Road Projects Victoria was progressing planning work which would be complete in late 2025. The timeline shown on the Big Build webpage for the Donnybrook Road upgrade says that community consultation opened in June 2025 and closed three weeks later in July, at which point the feedback would be reviewed before planning work was completed in late 2025. 2025 is gone and we are now well into 2026, but there is still no sign of any design work being released to the public. The results of the community survey were published in November 2025, and the feedback reflects what local residents have been saying for years and the Labor government has been ignoring. I will quote some of the feedback:

Must duplicate the bridge over the Hume. It is the primary cause of congestion.

Two lanes going in both directions is needed along Donnybrook Road until at least Peppercorn estate, but ideally until Epping Road …

Please provide multiple lanes from Donnybrook Road off ramp to Donnybrook Road …

There is no walking or cycling path along much of Donnybrook Road east of Donnybrook … station.

It has been clear for a long time that fully duplicating Donnybrook Road, including the bridge over the Hume, is an urgent necessity, yet the Allan Labor government have instead decided to prioritise a new intersection at Mitchell Street that requires ripping up the roundabout they built in 2024 and replacing it with traffic lights. The government promised the final designs would be complete in 2025. Labor must stop the delays, release the designs and reveal how it plans to upgrade Donnybrook Road.