Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Victorians are driving on Third World roads, thanks to second-rate Labor governments. Road safety is everyone's responsibility and, as we approach the busy Christmas season, I urge all road users to consider their responsibilities and their own behaviour. In the same vein, I urge the Victorian government to consider its behaviour. Victoria is the state with the biggest budget blowouts and the biggest potholes in Australia, on our neglected regional road network.

I drove the Monaro Highway on the weekend, and you know you're back in Victoria because the first signs as you cross the border are an uneven surface and a reduction in the speed limit to 60 kilometres an hour, and all the way to Cann River you encounter traffic hazard signs warning drivers to slow down because, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, Gippslanders are paying for expensive repairs to ruptured tyres, windscreens and suspension damage due to hitting crater-like potholes.

Even when the money is available, the incompetent bureaucrats and ministers at state and federal levels are failing to act with any urgency. It's hard to believe that more three years ago I secured $10 million to upgrade Mallacoota-Genoa Road. Now, more than three years later, we've had consultation and money wasted on a whole bunch of reports, but not a single new piece of bitumen or improvements have been made to the road itself. Mallacoota-Genoa Road has not been touched after more than three years, and this government has failed to get the Victorian government to actually deliver on that $10 million.

I say again: Victorians are driving on Third World roads thanks to second-rate— (Time expired)