Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I congratulate you on your election to the position of Speaker. It is well-deserved after a distinguished parliamentary career. I wish you all the very best for your role in what is a tough job but one I know you will do without fear or favour. I know you will make sure that this parliament is very proud of the official role that you play.

I want to talk tonight about how important it is that, as a government, we continue to keep providing road funding to regional and rural electorates. Nothing is more important than ensuring that we get proper road funding to regional and rural electorates. The coalition has committed a record $50 billion investment into infrastructure. I am proud to say that this is going into roads. We have the National Highway Upgrade Program, $229 million; Roads to Recovery Program, $2.5 billion; Bridges Renewal Program, $300 million; the Black Spot Program, $564.5 million; and the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program, $248 million. All of these programs will bring jobs, growth and opportunities to Wannon with better and safer roads.

I will start with the Western Highway. The Western Highway from Ballarat to Stawell is being duplicated. This investment in the Western Highway will see a stretch of 57 kilometres duplicated, the vast majority of it through Wannon, making the transport between these cities safer and more efficient. Five thousand vehicles travel from Ballarat to Stawell each day. It is the busiest freight road to Adelaide from Melbourne. The coalition government has contributed $404 million towards the project, which will make the road more productive, sustainable and safe for communities and heavy vehicles. Not only will this project reduce travel times and make journeys safer; the construction of the wider road will create 480 jobs.

There is the Roads to Recovery package for Wannon. Roads across Wannon will be upgraded and renewed through the government's Roads to Recovery Program announced last year. Each council will receive funds to look at the roads in their area that are most in need of repair. This means that real work can begin faster and in a more targeted way for locals, and the communities will see the benefits in both jobs and better infrastructure. Between 2014-15 and 2018-19, Ararat Rural City Council will get $9.6 million; Central Goldfields Shire, $4.9 million; Corangamite, $4.6 million; Glenelg, $14.3 million; Moyne, $16.6 million; Pyrenees, $9 million; Southern Grampians, $13 million; and the City of Warrnambool, $2 million. In total, there is $85 million for the Roads to Recovery Program in Wannon.

We have the Bridges Renewal Program. The injection of $2.2 million to upgrade our local bridges will make using them safer and more reliable. On the Castle Carey Road between Camperdown and Mortlake, the two-lane timber bridge will be replaced with a wider two-lane bridge. For the Ziegler Parade bridge over the Hopkins River at Allansford, there will be the repair and reinforcement of existing concrete bridge structures and an upgrade of the guard railing.

There is also the investment in the Condah-Hotspur road, which is about to create dividends this spring, once we get through the winter. The government has delivered on its commitment to provide $2.5 million for the upgrade of the Condah-Hotspur road. This project is to widen, strengthen and seal 14 kilometres of road located north of Heywood. It will support efficient operational use of heavy vehicles linking timber harvest areas with a key pre-export processing facility and will improve safety for timber trucks, school buses, tourists and regional road users.

Last, but not least, there is $25 million for the Great Ocean Road upgrade, which, combined with another $25 million from the previous Victorian coalition state government, will make sure that this iconic tourist route is of the standard it should be.

We are delivering for the roads for Wannon. There is more to do, but we are delivering.