Wednesday, 3 June 2026

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (18:01): I rise to speak on the state budget 2026–2027 and in particular budget paper 4, where page 74 reveals yet another delay in the ongoing debacle around planning for the Shepparton bypass. Stage 1 of the Shepparton bypass project involves the construction of a 10-kilometre section of road from the Midland Highway in Mooroopna to Wanganui Road in North Shepparton, which would remove heavy vehicles from both the Shepparton and Mooroopna CBDs and provide a second crossing over the Goulburn River. The bypass project requires an upgrade of the intersection of Wanganui Road, Ford Road and the Goulburn Valley Highway, which would improve safety at this crossing and connect the future bypass on the west with the existing Shepparton alternate route on the east.

Nine years ago $10.2 million was allocated in the 2017–18 budget towards planning and early works for the Shepparton bypass, broken down to $2.6 million for planning and $7.6 million for capital expenditure for preconstruction works and an upgrade of the intersection that was reported to include a roundabout. The $7.6 million is still a line item in the 2026–27 budget papers after nine years of waiting. Major construction work on the intersection has not started, and only $2.7 million of the funds, which is basically the money that was used to pay for the business case, will be spent by June this year. Why has this project not progressed, and what is actually going on with it? In every budget since 2018 the project’s completion date has been pushed back and back and back, and this year’s budget is no different. In 2017 the completion date was listed as quarter 3, 2019–20, which is January to March 2020, about the time of COVID. In the current 2026–27 budget a note for the project on page 74 of budget paper 4 reads:

The estimated completion date has been revised to quarter 1 2027–28 …

That is June to August 2027, 7½ years behind schedule. But we are now in June 2026, and I cannot see the government meeting the latest completion target, which is only 12 months away.

The urgency to upgrade the intersection and get started with building the bypass was highlighted by a recent Infrastructure Victoria report titled Warning Signs. That report highlights the risk to road and other transport infrastructure assets due to the higher risk of extreme weather events in a changing climate. It also notes the big impact that road and rail closures have had on industry, business and agriculture. The report actually takes Shepparton as a case study for the damage and disruption that can be caused by extreme weather. The October 2022 flood caused the closure of more than 800 roads across the Goulburn–Murray region, and as the report notes, this severely restricted movement for people in Shepparton and nearby areas. The report specifically mentions the Peter Ross-Edwards Causeway, which is currently the only river crossing to connect Shepparton to towns on the west of the Goulburn River.

The closure of the causeway isolated communities in Mooroopna and surrounding rural areas and closed them off from emergency services, health care, food supplies and evacuation routes. Road closures also disrupted critical freight and workforce mobility, which hindered food, transport and business continuity. The Shepparton bypass was intended not only to remove trucks and heavy vehicles from the centre of the city but also to provide a second river crossing to provide alternative access when the causeway floods. This Infrastructure Victoria report takes Shepparton as a case study and highlights how important the second river crossing is and reveals the urgency in progressing the Shepparton bypass. I urge the government to actually read that report and to get on with the job of building the Shepparton bypass.