Tuesday, 2 May 2023

 Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (15:31): I want to raise the issue today of the failure of the Andrews government to fully fund flood-affected regional shires to repair their roads. It is yet another indictment of the government’s lack of understanding and their attitude to regional Victoria and the challenges they face post the floods. We are now six months down the track from the October 2022 floods, and only the first very small tranche of funding has just started to turn up in some councils’ bank accounts. The best estimate that I have from my region is that there is nearly $190 million worth of road damage to be repaired. In 2011 after the floods the then Baillieu government made sure that full funding was available for all those local government areas that had flood damage. The Andrews government is letting it come out in dribs and drabs without any clear indication as to when those councils will get that money. Even worse, the bureaucrats are indicating that local government may have to fund up to 20 per cent of that amount of money themselves. That should be an alarm bell for ratepayers that the normal road maintenance program will not be able to be carried out because local government areas are going to have to stump up for what should be state government funding to fix those flood-damaged roads. It is also another indicator of just how broke this government is. They are not doing the right thing by those ratepayers. They are holding the money back because they actually do not have that money. I would urge the government to fund those roads fully.