Wednesday, 7 February 2024

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Report on the 2023–24 Budget Estimates

Tim McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (10:18): I am delighted to rise and make a contribution on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee’s Report on the 2023–24 Budget Estimates as well, like a previous member. I particularly want to focus on chapter 6.6.1, road maintenance and repairs, and chapter 6.6.2, road safety. Just to put it in context, since we met in the last sitting last year I have been called to two different public meetings. There were about 40 to 50 people at each of these. Their concerns were around roads in general, but they were mainly about overhanging trees and dangers that we experience. Some of these are on VicRoads roads and some of them are on council roads. To give you the example of Snow Road, which people exit when they are coming to the beautiful electorate of Ovens Valley and they are heading up to Bright or Hotham or Falls, they have been doing 110 kilometres an hour on the Hume, they exit onto Snow Road, they slow down to about 105 – that should be a bit less, but anyway – they are absolutely oblivious to the country conditions and they have absolutely no awareness about these trees.

After this December meeting where people had raised these concerns, sure enough a massive limb fell onto Snow Road. I was there on the afternoon when it fell, and somebody dragged it off to the side of the road. This limb would kill an entire family, and that is not being outrageous at all. It was a massive limb, and the damage it could cause was quite unsafe. In the last six months I have seen similar limbs fallen on the Wangaratta-Whitfield Road, the Greta–Moyhu–Hansonville road, the Benalla-Tocumwal Road and the Wangaratta-Yarrawonga Road. Most of those are VicRoads roads, and I have seen massive limbs falling from the canopies that are overhanging the roads. There have been plenty of near misses and close calls. Heaven forbid we see a fatality in the near future, which we certainly do not want to see.

At the January meeting we had the mayor and the deputy mayor of the Rural City of Wangaratta come and join us – Dean Rees and Harvey Benton, great guys – and they were trying to talk about how they can support us for these canopies on the council roads. But in their defence, their hands are tied because they need permission from the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action to remove some of these limbs that are overhanging the sides of these roads. Sometimes DEECA will not let you remove these limbs even though it is a council road and sometimes DEECA will say you can remove the tree but it is going to cost you $20,000 and the council says it does not really have $20,000, so it will have to play Russian roulette with that one.

Surely Victoria must be the only state in the world that refuses to remove trees and canopies that are safety hazards, and then they wonder why the road toll is where it sits. Victoria really has to change its attitude on trees and roadsides. Safety must come first – human lives versus trees. We can plant plenty more trees, a hundred trees for every tree that we move off roadsides. The government needs to change their policy on the duty of care for people’s lives rather than the trees.

I also want to touch on the environment and discuss access to the environment. I recently visited the El Dorado community where the dredge is. Many of you might know the old gold dredge at El Dorado. There is a swimming hole there that Parks Victoria have said they are going to reduce access to for the locals, and it is quite concerning. They are saying they want nature-based tourism, but at the end of the day they are telling the locals that they cannot swim at this hole. These budget estimates are really failing the Ovens Valley, failing the people who use these services, whether it is roads or whether it is, as I say, the dredge and the swimming hole. Parks have told them they are going to reduce access and people will not be able to swim there anymore, and that is quite outrageous if you ask me. I have written to the minister about this, and I hope that he comes back and supports the locals rather than just Parks wanting to reduce access.

Further, just on the roads, can I just remind people that the roads are made up of a pavement that we drive on. They are made up of the shoulders, and they are ruined and crumbling. They are also made up of the dangerous trees and the roadside vegetation. The Allan Labor government needs to look seriously at the state of our roads, not just the pavement itself but the shoulders and overhanging trees. When you try to get contractors in the country – they might be carting silage, for example – they have been told they have to have a tarp on their silage wagon, and it goes through and gets ripped by the trees that are in the canopy as they have to get off the side of the road. It is high time that this government looked into the whole roads maintenance package and gave us some support in the country like we deserve.