Tuesday, 12 May 2026

 Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:40): (2498) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety in the other place, and the action I seek is for the minister to provide an update to me on the estimate of damage done to the Ringwood bridge over the Maroondah Highway at Ringwood and to keep me updated on developments. In recent months Mr McGowan took it upon himself to attempt to remove graffiti from the Ringwood bridge. Some offensive graffiti had already been removed by professionals, but Mr McGowan, a self-styled and self-professed expert, thought he could do one better. To no-one’s surprise, not only did he further damage a public asset but he left an even worse eyesore. When the Leader of the Opposition mows a median strip for the cameras, we can roll our eyes at the theatre of it, and when Liberal MPs fill a pothole in Nepean for a social media stunt, we can see their motivation. But when a member of Parliament attempts to remove graffiti from a bridge with no expertise, no authorisation, no professional assessment and a lack of appropriate treatment, leaving the structure in a worse condition than they found it, that is not politics, that is recklessness.

The opposition continue to lack focus, evidenced through their stunts and unilateral actions, yet they have no focus other than to cut $40 billion from the budget. Proper graffiti removal on public assets and infrastructure takes expertise. It requires knowledge of the surface material, the correct chemical agents and trained personnel that understand that the wrong treatment causes permanent damage. The member opposite understood none of this. That is why the Allan Labor government is investing a record $1.04 billion in this budget in repairing and maintaining Victoria’s roads and infrastructure, including the removal of 200,000 graffiti tags by trained crews who know what they are doing. That is the difference between this government and the opposition: one has a budgeted plan, the other has plans for cuts and stunts and ways to add to the taxpayer bill. The action I seek is that the minister ensure that the damage caused to this bridge, which is assessed to be in the order of $150,000, be rectified, and that a bill for the cost of repairing the asset is sent to Mr McGowan for his attention.