Wednesday, 3 June 2026

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (19:03): (2560) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and the action that I seek is for the minister to allocate funding to fully duplicate Donnybrook Road all the way from the Hume Freeway to the Epping Road and Merriang Road intersection. My constituents in Yan Yean feel totally let down by Labor’s recent decision to only do a half-job on Donnybrook Road. This road is notorious for some of the worst traffic congestion in Melbourne’s outer suburbs. Thousands of homes were approved to be built and many more are being built, but the Labor government totally neglected to upgrade the road and rail infrastructure before families moved in. The road is still a single-lane country track, and every morning and evening thousands of residents have to squeeze onto the road to join the freeway and travel to work or school.

Council data shows traffic volumes have grown from 2900 vehicles a day in 2017 to 35,562 vehicles a day in 2025. The problem has lasted for years, but Labor have done nothing to fix it. The recent joint announcement by the Commonwealth and state governments is deeply disappointing because it will only do half the job, and this part-fix is really no fix at all. Stage 2 of the Donnybrook Road upgrade will build a second bridge over the Hume and duplicate Donnybrook Road to Dwyer Street, but Mitchell Street to Dwyer Street is only about 500 metres of road. That is about 5 per cent of the length of Donnybrook Road. This is not even half a job, yet the Labor Minister for Transport Infrastructure claimed that these upgrades will ease congestion. Let us be clear: Labor’s half-job on Donnybrook Road will not fix congestion, it will just push the bottleneck from the bridge over the freeway further down to Dwyer Street. At that point motorists will still have to squeeze their cars back into a single lane, and the congestion will continue from there. The northern growth suburbs are a total planning failure by Labor. Families move there to live the Australian dream, but right now they are living a nightmare. Residents tell me the hour-long wait in traffic is eating into their family time and killing their quality of life, and some are even thinking of moving house to escape the daily grind. It is not even enough to just duplicate Donnybrook Road. The state government also needs to build out Cameron Street to Merriang Road to provide an alternative entry and exit point for the housing estates on the east side of the railway line.

Every time the boom gates fail or there is a car collision or a truck breaks down and the road is closed, every single resident is blocked from driving in and out of their housing estate because there is still no alternative entry or exit point. Labor has short-changed the residents of Donnybrook with half measures that will not solve the problem. I urge the minister to come back with a better plan and fund the full duplication of Donnybrook Road.