Tuesday, 2 June 2026

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (22:48): (2544) My adjournment is addressed to the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and President, it concerns your and my favourite topic, which is Donnybrook Road in my electorate. I know you, President, but also the clerks are probably sick and tired of hearing me talking about Donnybrook Road every single week, but we have had some slightly good news because it was revealed in the federal budget that they have gone back to the well and found another $37.4 million to build a second bridge over the Hume. That being said, the state government only contributed $7.7 million to that same thing – after they realised, based on the community consultation which I spoke about in this chamber, that their B-grade option to just blow up the Mitchell Street roundabout was not going to work. You actually need to duplicate it and have a second bridge over the Hume to alleviate the traffic issues. What my community are more concerned about is the timeline; they want to know when their traffic headache is going to end. I regularly receive correspondence from my constituents about this, so I would like to take the opportunity to read some of that correspondence into Hansard. Aylin from the Olivine estate says that:

As a new mother, I have lost count of the number of times I have been forced to turn around or sit in traffic for hours because of boom gate failures and the ongoing chaos on Donnybrook Road – all while my baby screams and cries in the car. What should be a normal commute has become unbearable.

Again, the government is not going near level crossing removal as well. Cathy from Donnybrook calls it a nightmare and says her family are being forced to leave their community as a result.

Dinuka from Donnybrook wrote to me to say:

Every day, residents are dealing with severe congestion, particularly around Donnybrook Road and … single-lane choke points … simply cannot handle the rapidly growing population in the area. What should be short local trips are regularly turning into long, stressful commutes.

Joban from Donnybrook wrote about how this is affecting their daily life:

As a working parent, I am struggling to manage something as basic as dropping off my child to school while also getting to work punctually.

Kifarkis from Kalkallo said:

Every day, residents experience extreme delays simply trying to exit Kalkallo towards Donnybrook or return home via Donnybrook Road.

That is just an example of the daily correspondence I get regarding Donnybrook Road. Again, this is a government that is spending almost one-fifth of our entire infrastructure budget on the Suburban Rail Loop in the eastern suburbs, and this is what my residents have to put up with. So the action I seek is for the minister to – as my constituents are asking – provide a clear timetable on when construction on stage 1 and stage 2 will begin.