Member for Mallee (Vic) Dr Anne Webster MP speaks on the Member for Wannon, the Hon. Dan Tehan MP's motion about regional Victorian roads.

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Dr WEBSTER (Mallee) - (13:03): I want to commend my good colleague, the member for Wannon, for this very timely motion about how horrible the roads are. This government has done little—in fact, I would say it has done nothing to improve the safety of those who drive in my electorate of Mallee. Hardly a day goes by in my electorate in north-west Victoria where constituents don't complain about the state of the roads. Pick a highway or pick any road—the Calder Highway, Sunraysia Highway, Robinvale-Sea Lake Road, Henty Highway, Murray Valley Highway, Western Highway—they are all awful. Some ask if they can send the bill to the Victorian government for the damage to their vehicle, as the motion states, from driving at high speed to unexpected potholes on major roads. We're not talking back roads here; we're talking major highways.

The roads in Mallee are among some of the most dangerous in Victoria. I regularly drive the length and breadth of my electorate and see firsthand the state of roads that constituents are forced to use every day. The state of the roads beggars belief. There are sections of road in Mallee where the potholes are huge, and the bitumen is hanging on for dear life. I have even had a constituent tell me he toots his horn when approaching potholes to ensure there's not a mob of sheep in there. The safety of Mallee drivers is being compromised by the Victorian state government's poor management of regional road repairs. According to the departmental documents, there has been a 95 per cent reduction in essential road maintenance between 2022-23 and 2023-24 from nine million square kilometres to 422,000 square kilometres. I mean, seriously? Motorists in regional Victoria have been left to navigate a network of pothole-plagued roads that are not fit for use.

RACV's 2024 My Country Road survey shows that potholes and poor road condition are the biggest safety issues on regional roads across the state, with improving road surfaces a top priority. This issue is of immense concern to regional Victorians—like those who live in Mallee—as illustrated by the 75 per cent increase in responses to this year's survey alone and the finding that while dangerous driver behaviour was the top issue in 2021, now it's poor road conditions, which was rated as more than twice as important.

The findings of the Victorian state government's survey reinforce this fact, finding that 91 per cent of roads were in poor or very poor condition. The auditor-general investigated the $2.2 billion dollars the Albanese government had no hesitation in giving to the Andrews-Allan Victorian Labor government's pet Suburban Rail Loop project, which has blown out from an initial $50 billion to—if you don't mind—$216 billion, at last count. The auditor-general said, in September:

As at June 2024, SRL East had yet to go through the formal project approval process, and the department is awaiting a project proposal report from the Victorian Government. This process must occur before funding can be expended.

The Victorian government also quietly shut down Regional Roads Victoria earlier this year. Victorian Labor had launched the agency in 2018 with the promise it would ensure 'regional communities have the safe and reliable roads they deserve.' So what do you do? You just remove the agency, so nobody knows how bad the roads are.

The Albanese government is 100 per cent responsible, hand-in-glove with the Victorian government, for the shabby and unsafe conditions of the roads in my electorate. They need to be held to account, and that is what this side of the House will do.

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