ADJOURNMENT
Senator McKENZIE (Victoria—Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (19:34): In the not too far distant past, Victorian roads were the envy of Australia. By virtue of its geography and a deliberately well-maintained road network, there was a noticeable difference in Victorian roads when you crossed the border from the north or from the west. In fact, Victoria was built to have the best maintained road network in the country and, for that matter, lead the country on road safety.
The Country Roads Board was established in 1913 and gave the state a professional, disciplined system for planning and building its roads for 70-odd years, yet, today, that network is falling apart. It fell apart under three Labor premiers in succession—Daniel Andrews, Jacinta Allan and now Ben Carroll. The Victorian Auditor-General's Office found that 48 per cent of state owned roads were in poor or very poor condition in 2024, up from 39 per cent just three years earlier.
The people of Victoria have had enough—enough of tyres and undercarriages being damaged and enough of knowing, once again, that the people of regional Victoria are second-class citizens. This year's budget included an emergency top-up, as the Labor government realises the jig is up, but Premier Carroll himself was the roads minister at the time, and now we're seeing not just the lag in delivery times of getting the kids to school and getting freight to and from the port.
It now has a human cost. Just on Sunday, Peter 'Tiki' Mason, a 71-year-old man from Ballarat, was killed when his motorcycle struck a pothole on the Western Freeway at Trawalla. Asked whether his government bore responsibility for Mr Mason's death, Premier Carroll said he accepted responsibility for making sure our roads were safe.
Asked how many of the over 500,000 potholes he'd promised to fix had been filled, Mr Carroll actually didn't have a number. He said: … I'm the Premier not the roads minister. Heads up, Premier, you were the roads minister.
It is simply not good enough. There is a better way, and the Nationals in government will give our crumbling Victorian roads the attention they deserve through a $5 billion plan to repair and rebuild Victoria's failing road network. Victorians don't need to be told their roads are falling apart.
They drive on them every single day. Victorians are constantly dealing with rough surfaces, potholes and roads that should have been repaired properly years ago. Too often, Labor's answer has been another temporary patch-up job that quickly breaks apart, leaving motorists back where we started.
Victoria's road crisis developed while Labor oversaw billions of dollars in project cost blow-outs and waste. They've watched $40 billion in major cost blow-outs, not to mention the $15 billion sent off to organised crime in a corrupt CFMEU through Victoria's Big Build. We need to get back to fixing our roads properly before they fail, not waiting until they become dangerous and then scrambling to patch them up.
The roads commitment from the Nationals in government is part of their fair-share guarantee, which would ensure regional Victoria receives 25 per cent of all new infrastructure spending. Regional Victorians produce the food, energy and resources that keep our state moving, yet regional Victoria continues to miss out under the Labor Party with its city-centric corrupt Victoria's Big Build projects.
The plan to fix regional Victoria will stop the waste and the corruption so that we can deliver a fair share for regional Victorians, build and maintain better and smoother roads, invest in reliable health care that is closer to home, save Victorians money with fewer taxes and fees and recruit 3,000 more police to tackle the crime wave that regional Victoria is experiencing.
Victorians have had enough of a corrupt Labor government. They want to see their state restored, trust restored in government and investment in the things that they're concerned about—crumbling roads, accessible health care and decreasing crime. Only a vote for the National Party in the upcoming November election will deliver that.
(Time expired)