Wednesday, 29 May 2024

 Rikkie-Lee TYRRELL (Northern Victoria) (17:29): (919) My adjournment matter is directed to the Minister for Roads and Road Safety in the other place. In the 2024–25 state budget the Allan Labor government announced a 10-year $6.6 billion investment in road maintenance for Victoria’s neglected and unsafe road network. This announcement included funding of $964 million allocated in the next financial year to repair and maintain our roads. What the budget did not specify is how much of this $964 million will be allocated to fix regional roads, including those in my electorate of Northern Victoria Region. Northern Victorians are faced daily with dangerous road conditions, including crumbling roads, potholes, rutting and extremely rough surfaces. Many of these issues are in my electorate of the Northern Victoria Region on major highways, such as the Hume and the Goulburn Valley freeways, which carry thousands of cars, trucks and buses each day. They face damage to their vehicles and possible harm to themselves because of these unacceptable conditions – flat tyres, damages to rims and undercarriages and wheel alignments thrown out from the constant bumping and jerking from the uneven road surfaces.

What the government fails to understand is that country people believe they have been ignored when it comes to road maintenance funding – and quite honestly, who could blame them. My constituents, and I am sure the constituents of all of my regional colleagues in this place, want transparency as to where this proposed roads funding is going. The action that I seek is for the minister to provide the specific funding amounts from the proposed $964 million that will be allocated to each regional area to improve our unsafe road network.