Wednesday, 30 October 2024

Production of documents

Bridge maintenance

Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (10:07): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes the challenges of objectively measuring and maintaining the safety of ageing bridges is a critical issue that has been known about for over a decade and reported on many times, including in the Victorian Auditor-General’s December 2011 report, Management of Road Bridges;

(2) requires the Leader of the Government, in accordance with standing order 10.01, to table in the Council, within four weeks of the house agreeing to this resolution, all documents relating to the management and safety of ageing road and rail bridge infrastructure, including but not limited to:

(a) the government’s internal or unpublished responses to the Auditor-General’s report on management of road bridges;

(b) funding arrangement negotiations with the Commonwealth government for the bridge renewal program from 2011 onwards;

(c) changes in safety standards and safety inspections from 2011 onwards, including the organisations, representative bodies, or individuals who were consulted; and

(d) the most recent indicative timeframes and associated changes in the risk for the replacement or renewal of road and rail bridge infrastructure, such as safety risk mitigation reports from independent auditors and internal experts.

All around the world the last 15 years has demonstrated that ageing bridge infrastructure is a critical and complex challenge for every country. In Victoria the difficulties inherent in objectively measuring and maintaining the safety of our ageing bridges has been known about for over a decade and reported on many times, including by the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office report Management of Road Bridges in 2011. We also know that in 2022, in an effort to address this increasing risk to the safety of our community, the Labor government committed $82.5 million and spent a minimum of $20 million investing in Eloque’s bridge sensor technology. I will not rehash it, but we know that that did not work. That effort failed, but I still believe that the people of Victoria deserve to know the true state of our bridges and what the government has been doing to ensure that they are safe for users and what the plans are, if any, for the necessary decommission and replacement of those ageing bridges deemed to be unsafe or predicted to be unsafe in the coming years.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:09): I rise to share a few comments on the short-form documents motion which has been put to us today by Mrs Deeming, and in accordance with the government’s usual practice in this place I affirm that the government will not be opposing this motion today. It is always of course an important subject when it comes to discussing the maintenance of critical assets such as road and railway infrastructure, including bridges. Standing here today, I acknowledge that over the past 10 years the Allan Labor government has invested considerably in our road and rail network. Of course we have seen great expansions and great upgrades from new roads right through to new railway lines. Indeed I believe there have been well over 80 level crossing removals now, which has improved the safety of road and rail traffic across metropolitan Melbourne in particular but also in some other parts, including Geelong.

I note that that by definition means that we have created many more bridges which will require maintenance as well. I think the government’s track record illustrates a very strong record when it comes to maintaining those assets. I note in particular the references in Mrs Deeming’s motion to a 2011 Victorian Auditor-General’s Office report on maintaining Victoria’s road bridges. VAGO, the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office, is one of our most important accountability institutions in this state. I, along with other members of this place, have the privilege of serving on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, which has an important oversight role of VAGO. We get to see at the same level as other people but also with much more of a greater focus the types of reports that VAGO does.

It has done a number of reports when it comes to important issues such as this but also in terms of the management of those things. I note that the 2011 report which Mrs Deeming refers to has fundamentally two components to it. One is about VicRoads and the state road management of our bridge network, as well as that role of local councils. I note that the particular VAGO report to which this motion refers did pick up some challenges at the time of its publication in 2011, which was of course in the period of the last Liberal–Nationals government, one which was renowned for achieving three-quarters of completely nothing.

By stark contrast this is a government that is investing, and I mentioned that $6 billion over 10 years of investment in upgrading and maintaining our road network. I note the recent announcement of $964 million by the Allan Labor government for a road maintenance blitz across Victoria. We have seen changing weather conditions. We have seen in some cases the effects of climate change and flooding put added strain onto our road network, particularly in regional areas and particularly in those cases where it comes to riverine areas and bridges where those floodwaters can cause some damage as well.

This is why this is, I would say, a timely motion for us to be looking at. As I say, that work is very much already underway and indeed already underway by this Parliament. The Environment and Planning Committee is undertaking an inquiry into climate resilience, which is one important part of this because the changing climate, changing weather patterns, do very much affect road conditions. We have all seen that in the wake of heavy rains over the past few years where that has led to worsening road conditions which have required additional maintenance.

I saw that particularly in my region, with the community coming to me to raise the issue of Napoleon Road on the Rowville–Lysterfield border, following which we were able to get that road upgraded, including a full rebuild of a couple of the key intersections so that they would not degrade again. To do that work properly is very important. There was a huge amount of work, and that is why it is so important that we see the $964 million investment announced by Minister Horne, who has been very committed to doing everything she can to make sure that our roads and, as part of that, our road bridges and other transport bridges are of the strongest quality and are maintained as they have been and as they will continue to be.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (10:14): It is my pleasure to speak on this motion brought forward by Mrs Deeming. We should not be surprised, I guess, by the state of our roads and bridges here in Victoria. We know that when Labor cannot manage money, it is our roads and infrastructure and bridges that pay the price for that, and many Victorians across the state are indeed paying the price. We have got net debt which is set to reach $187 billion by 2027–28 and interest repayments – just to service the debt, by the way – of about $1 million per hour. That is plenty of bridges per hour that we could get going and get to fixing if this government had not wasted so much money over their decade of incompetence.

The roads and bridges across my electorate are crumbling because of this government. We know that the roads maintenance budget has been significantly deteriorating and remains 16 per cent below what it was in 2020. The budget papers reveal a 69 per cent reduction in the level of maintenance undertaken on regional roads in 2023–24. Nearly 400 kilometres of roads have speed reductions due to poor pavement condition. One of them is Watson Street in Wallan, by the way, in my electorate, which has had a 40-kilometres-an-hour speed limit sign for a couple of years because the state of the road is so poor because this government has failed to invest in roads and in fixing potholes. It is a fundamental responsibility to keep our roads up to scratch.

The federal government have been no help with this. Anthony ‘Airbus’ Albanese has taken an axe to road funding, particularly in regard to bridges. That has massively reduced the share for Victoria, which used to be quite significant – a funding share of about $86.6 million – but no more. No bridges for Victorians but free upgrades for Airbus Albanese is what we are getting under this government.

I remember a time when Tim Pallas and Labor initiated the Our Fair Share campaign during the 2019 federal election campaign – I remember it well; they spent millions of dollars on it – because of being ripped off by the Commonwealth government. It is a campaign which the Auditor-General has slammed and one that they have not ruled out doing again. I encourage looking at doing it again, because the federal government has cut funding for roads and bridges in Victoria – roads and bridges that are deteriorating.

We know the Victorian government cannot manage money, and everyone is paying the price, but at least some sort of contribution from Canberra – or at least when Canberra reduces funding to roads and bridges in Victoria, maybe make some noise about it. They are very quiet about Airbus Albo at the moment. He is happy to take free upgrades for his personal travel because he is best mates with the former Qantas CEO but not happy to fund bridges in our communities. You would think the Labor members would make some noise about that. You would think they would, given their form, maybe run a taxpayer-funded ad campaign slamming the federal government. We know that the federal government has cut infrastructure funding to Victoria. If they feel so strongly about it, I encourage them to run the same campaign against Albanese – but no. As the Auditor-General has stated, it was a blatant misuse of taxpayer funding. You would rather spend millions on political advertising campaigns than actually fund our roads and bridges. That says everything about this government – shame. I will be supporting this.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (10:18): I rise to speak on Mrs Deeming’s documents motion. I will get to Mr Mulholland’s contribution in a minute. There are some interesting facts that I think would help elucidate – I am just trying to find them – the points he was making.

Mrs Deeming in her documents motion is seeking to obtain some documents with respect to the management and safety of road and rail bridge infrastructure here in Victoria, including internal or unpublished responses to the Auditor-General’s report on the management of road bridges; funding arrangement negotiations with the Commonwealth government for the bridge renewal program from 2011 onwards; changes in safety standards and safety inspections from 2011 onwards, including the organisations, representative bodies or individuals who were consulted; and the most recent indicative timeframes and associated changes in the risk for the replacement or renewal of road and rail bridge infrastructure, such as safety risk mitigation reports from independent auditors and experts.

Obviously the government does not have a practice of opposing documents motions, and we will not be doing so today. The motion is seeking access to documents relating to the Auditor-General’s investigation into the management of road bridges, which largely occurred during that brief moment when the Liberal Party were in government, when they had two premiers in four years. They were unceremoniously booted out after that point.

What we do know is that in this report and the period that this report covers – and this was noted in the Auditor-General’s report, and Mrs Deeming is obviously seeking access to further information here – the Auditor-General in 2011 found that the previous government had ‘not formed detailed long-term plans’ for the management of these vital transport connections and had not done the work necessary to ‘adequately inform longer term resourcing decisions’. If we are interested in documents relating to the management of road bridges, we think it is particularly important to understand that the Auditor-General found that the Liberals, when they were in government, had no long-term plans. Everyone knew that of course, because it was a shambolic government.

David Davis interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: It is not rubbish, Mr Davis. It is the Auditor-General’s opinion. If you have such a low opinion of the Auditor-General, Mr Davis –

David Davis interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: You do like the Auditor-General, and all I am doing is quoting what the Auditor-General said about the Liberals’ management of our road infrastructure here in Victoria: they had ‘not formed detailed long-term plans’ and they had not done the work to ‘adequately inform longer term resourcing decisions’. The Auditor-General’s report recommended that the government develop long-term, comprehensive plans to maintain these vital road assets and connect communities across the state. That is what Labor has done since we have been elected. We have invested in our roads. We invested in the last budget and in previous decades $6.6 billion to maintain our road bridges.

Mr Mulholland in his contribution talked about Commonwealth contributions to roads, and he complained about advocacy from Labor that Victoria deserves its fair share of infrastructure funding. Labor will never apologise for demanding that Victoria get its fair share of Commonwealth funding. We know that under the Liberals, when the Liberals were in power in Canberra, Victoria received less than our fair share, less than our population was entitled to. I know this because I wrote a report on it, and I gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry about the underfunding of Victorian infrastructure when the Liberals were in power in the Commonwealth. If I had the time, I would very happily go into quite considerable detail about not only the extent of underfunding in the budget but the fact that even when the federal Liberal Party could not give us enough of our allocation in the budget, it was underspent. The federal Liberals could not even manage to get the money that they promised Victorians out the door, which was less than we were entitled to. We will support Mrs Deeming’s motion to get these documents because this is a very important issue.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (10:24): I, like others in this chamber, am lending my support to the documents motion as per the convention that has been long practised in this place. Can I take a moment to begin by thanking Mrs Deeming for bringing this before us today. As has very much already been discussed but is worth repeating, this motion seeks the release of documents in relation to the Auditor-General’s investigation into the previous Liberal–National government’s management of road bridges.

I think it is fair to say that in 2011 the Auditor-General found that the previous government had not formed detailed and long-term plans, and we know that these are just so necessary for the management of these vital transport connections, and they had not done the work necessary to adequately inform some long-term resourcing decisions. The report went on to recommend that the government develop comprehensive long-term plans to maintain these vital road assets that connect communities and businesses right across the state.

I could go into a list of some of the roads that this motion lends itself to and some of the critical investments that have been made by the Allan Labor government over the last few years, but I will say that we are enormously proud of the efforts that we have made to heed similar expert advice and we have made subsequent investments to the tune of $6.6 billion to maintain our roads and bridges over a decade through to last year’s budget. This is really the sort of certainty that is absolutely necessary for industry, for business, for families and for communities.

Let me just be really blunt about it: we need long-term road maintenance strategies that deliver work strategically right across the state. A multi-year funding approach allows us to mitigate the future risks in advance rather than waiting for that year-on-year funding, which we do know and have heard from experts can really be an inefficient way to plan our spend. It also means that we are much more data driven in our approach and much more targeted in our spending, allowing us to take a more holistic, whole-of-network view to prioritising our investment. We have certainly been working on building a really contemporary approach to road maintenance that enables us to target our investment strategically through our new 10-year funding model.

It is worth saying that we also need to consider more frequent floods. I had the good fortune, with other members here, to sit on the flood inquiry and hear about the very real impacts that more frequent and severe floods are having on our roads right across the state. I am thinking too particularly of the north and the north-east through the flood inquiry, and I thank the members of the community who came forward and gave evidence during that time. We know that we need to adapt to the challenges of climate change, and very much more frequent, more intense and much more damaging flood events are a part of that mix, so that is what we are doing through the 10-year strategy.

We have recently announced the start of works on this year’s road maintenance program thanks to the $964 million investment from this government. That is equivalent to $2.6 million every single day and is the largest single-year investment in our state’s history. The crews are out there, they are on the roads, and I just finish my remarks by reminding people to please drive safely around our road crews. They are trying to make our roads safer for all users, and I encourage you to respect that on our roads.

Motion agreed to.