Wednesday, 19 February 2025

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (18:19): (1429) My adjournment is directed to the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and I once again seek the action of the minister to urgently address and duplicate Donnybrook Road. As you know, President, I am on a bit of a reverse strike, speaking about Donnybrook Road every single sitting week. I shared my adjournment last week, inviting the minister to attend Donnybrook Road with me in peak hour. Actually, over 10,000 people in my community viewed my adjournment speech, so I thought, instead of continuing to ask the minister things, I would read out what local constituents are saying to me about Donnybrook Road.

Jacqui says:

It can take 20 mins to get from the freeway to the front of the first estate. The state of the road is abysmal and packing tens of thousands of people into an area before any roads have actually been factored into the equation seems to be normal for this government however it’s ludicrous.

Andre agrees with my invitation to get you, Minister, onto Donnybrook Road at peak hour:

… get these ministers out here to experience the nightmare our road systems are!

Prashant says:

It’s a nightmare to drive on Donnybrook road in the morning around 8am. It takes more than 20 mins to just cross the bridge and get on the freeway towards Craigieburn.

Jarryd says:

… the no U-turn at Kalkallo has done nothing. I was driving past many times today as well as getting diesel and I saw easily 100 cars doing U-turns.

Andrew says:

You’ve hit the nail on the head. I worked in Innovation Dr, I’ve been at a complete stand still on the highway with semis coming off the bypass. It’s an accident waiting to happen, a serious accident.

Paul says:

The off ramps at Donnybrook rd are just gridlocked from 3pm onwards. Mornings to! Donnybrook rd East needs duplicating which includes duplicating the bridge. The Hume needs an extra lane both ways from at least Donnybrook rd.

Lhanie from Donnybrook says the community sees through the Big Build putting up a website for a future Donnybrook Road upgrade:

Investigations will probably start in late 2025 just in time for the next election.

Steven says:

Being a leader is about moments and you nailed this one for all residents …

They are just some of the many hundreds of contributions my constituents made. Of course I remind the minister it was actually the Liberals when we were in government that duplicated the Mickleham side of Donnybrook Road. So on one side you have got a lovely four-lane highway because we struck a developer contribution plan with a developer who built basically all of Mickleham, but Labor in the building of the Kalkallo and Donnybrook side failed to do any of that because they do not like developer contribution plans. They reversed that arrangement. They like to collect all the money from the growth areas infrastructure contributions into Spring Street, where they let it sit and wait for two years for costs to increase. That is the example to the minister. The action I once again seek is for the minister to come out with me in peak hour to Donnybrook Road and then duplicate Donnybrook Road.