Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) a Royal Automobile Club of Victoria 'My Country Road' survey in July 2024 of over 7,000 Victorians saw 64 per cent of respondents identify potholes and poor road conditions as their top safety issue, up from 46 per cent in 2021;

(b) a National Transport Research Organisation survey found 91 per cent of Victoria's 8,400 kilometre road network is rated poor or very poor;

(c) the Audit Office of New South Wales identified in November 2024 that in the last available reporting year the estimated total replacement cost of council road assets across New South Wales was around $102 billion but in the same year local councils reported collective road asset maintenance expenditure of around $1 billion;

(d) according to the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA), local roads make up 77 per cent of Australia's road network by length, with 678,000 kilometres managed by local governments, only 39 per cent of which are sealed roads;

(e) ALGA president Matt Burnett described the former Government's $3.25 billion Local Roads and Community Infrastructure (LRCI) program as a 'game-changer', adding that 'reinstating the LRCI Program will support every council, and more importantly, provide tangible benefits to every Australian community';

(f) former ALGA president Linda Scott said in 2023, 'making the LRCI permanent would be an investment in Australia's future productivity';

(g) Local Government Association of South Australia CEO Clinton Jury said the LRCI program 'made a significant, positive impact on our neighbourhoods by uplifting our regional roads, making them safer for everyone'; and

(h) despite the very strong endorsements of LRCI and the road maintenance burden on local governments across regional Australia, the Government axed LRCI with final payments due this financial year and have not provided an alternative to make our roads safer and improve regional productivity; and

(2) calls upon the Government to outline how it will fund local roads to improve road safety and productivity for regional Australians.

The Albanese Labor government is holding back and leaving behind regional Australians—this time by the underfunding of local road improvement and maintenance. Local governments are responsible for local roads in our towns, suburbs and rural areas, with council managed roads making up 77 per cent of Australia's road network by length—that's 678,000 kilometres.

In Victoria, local roads make up 87 per cent of the state's road network, and 53 per cent are unsealed. Eighty-seven per cent of respondents to a 2025 survey for local governments in Victoria rated the maintenance of sealed roads in their area as either 'extremely important' or 'very important', and 86 per cent said the same for unsealed roads. Victorian local governments' performance against a measure of maintenance of unsealed roads has been steadily failing since 2016. Forty-seven per cent of respondents rated the condition of unsealed roads as either 'poor' or 'very poor' in 2025.

As shadow minister for local government, I am sticking up for them not having a go at them. Regional councils and shires face chronic underfunding, limiting maintenance and upgrades of local roads. Financial sustainability issues are worst in small rural councils due to a limited ability to generate revenue, cost shifting from state and federal governments, the huge infrastructure base that councils have to maintain, limited economies of scale and challenges in winning competitive grants.

The state of our roads is inextricably linked to road deaths. The rate of annual road deaths per 100,000 population declined over the five years to 2020, but since that low it has increased at an average of three per cent per year, reaching 4.78 per 100,000 population in 2024. In 2023, the per capita fatality rate, based on the location of a road traffic accident, increased dramatically with geographic remoteness from two per 100,000 in major cities to 22.2 per 100,000 in very remote areas. Rates in inner and outer regional areas were four to five times higher than in major cities, and rates in remote and very remote areas were 10 to 15 times higher than in major cities.

Research consistently shows that poor road conditions like inadequate lane widths, unsealed shoulders, lack of barriers, poor signage and degraded pavement contribute significantly to road fatalities, particularly to single vehicle and head-on crashes. These crashes are exacerbated in rural and remote areas, where higher speeds intercept with substandard infrastructure. Yet the Albanese Labor government's solution is to slash the default speed limit from 100 kilometres per hour to as low as 70 kilometres per hour. A shorter than usual consultation merely published on the departmental website was not announced by the minister by press release like other consultations are. The coalition has today embarrassed the government into a two-week extension of time, but this feels like a Clayton's consultation.

When it comes to regional Australia, Labor's minds are made up and their priorities are cuts, neglect and shutting regions down. In 2020, the then coalition government introduced the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program, an uncontested and untied grant program that every council received. This was an important mechanism to increase road funding. Despite this being an overwhelmingly popular program as the 2025-26 federal budget shows, the program is winding down, with no new allocations after June 2026. It was confirmed during supplementary Senate estimates earlier in October that there is no new untied, non-competitive grant funding for roads and local infrastructure in the works to replace this program.

In contrast, the coalition pledged a $1 billion extension to the program in the lead-up to the 2025 selection, including $500 million for roads. I absolutely want to see us work hard to reduce the road toll in regional Australia but this government would rather put the brakes on drivers. (Time expired)

Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Jamie Chaffey (Parkes, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I am seconding the motion.

Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just a week ago I was standing at the Jervis Bay Road turn off marvelling at the deck of the new flyover where 11 massive super T girders had been installed. It was an awesome sight to see the 28-metre long concrete girders, each weighing 47 tonne, that had been transported from Newcastle and craned into place during a week of night works. The bridge deck marks an exciting milestone for this intersection, which sees the highest volume of traffic on the Princes Highway between Nowra and the Victorian border. The intersection upgrade and overpass will transform travel along the New South Wales South Coast and provide a key link to Huskisson and surrounding villages. The milestone installation will allow the construction of the bridge to take shape with a mid-2026 completion target, and the project is on track for completion in 2027.

I pounded the pavement with local residents, petitioned, lobbied and worked with Vincentia Matters and I am proud to have delivered $100 million for this important infrastructure project. I have also secured $400 million to continue the Princes Highway upgrade to dual lanes from Jervis Bay Road South to Tomerong. I drive country roads every day as I travel the length and breadth of my electorate. It takes me over four hours to drive the hundreds of kilometres from one end of Gilmore to the other, with dozens of long winding local roads into 180 odd coastal and inland villages across the three local council areas of Kiama, Shoalhaven and the Eurobodalla. I know how important regional roads are, and I know the Albanese Labor government is committed to working with state and local governments to build and maintain them.

Building better roads takes time, and work on our rural and regional roads is never really complete. Just as one project is finished, another one gets underway. In my electorate, I was pleased to secure a special $40 million Shoalhaven local roads package to upgrade six key local roads in the region. That was in October 2022, three years ago, but still not a sod has been turned on any of these road projects. When it comes to fixing local roads, filling the potholes, repairing land strips and making them more resilient against future natural disaster, this government is handing out the money for local councils, and it's up to our councils to get the job done.

However, I am disappointingly finding it's impossible to get updates from the Shoalhaven mayor about the $40 million package I delivered three years ago, and the community is asking: when will our roads be fixed? Governments at every level need to invest in safety improvements and upgrades to keep up with growing communities. We're doubling the Roads to Recovery funding, money that goes straight to local councils to help fix local roads. As the Chair of the New South Wales Black Spot Consultative Panel, I'm so proud that the Albanese Labor government has significantly increased funding to the black spot program from $100 million to $150 million per year. I know how much this will help fix dangerous roads in our communities. We've also established the Safer Local Roads and Infrastructure Program, which is addressing current and emerging priorities in road infrastructure needs.

I drive rural roads every day, and I understand how important it is that they're maintained and upgraded to ensure we all get home safe every day. Living on the south coast, which has been hit hard by fire, floods and storms, I know firsthand how regional roads are impacted by natural disasters. Road safety is a top priority for people in my electorate, and that's why I have fought so hard to deliver more than $1 billion to get important road projects off the ground. When I drive around Gilmore, I'm immensely proud to see roadworks that I have championed completed or underway—major infrastructure projects like the Far North Collector Road, which was completed thanks to $35 million in federal funding, the Nowra bypass, moving forward with $97 million in federal funding, and the Milton Ulladulla bypass, which has $752 million in federal funding. These are some of Gilmore's big-ticket items, but just as important are the smaller road projects that are happening across my electorate thanks to federal funds. I'm deeply committed to addressing longstanding problems on local roads caused by extreme weather events and also future-proofing the local road network for expected population growth in the region. I will always fight for and deliver the road safety projects Gilmore locals want to see.

Jamie Chaffey (Parkes, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Most Australians have travelled on regional roads. These roads are not only the network that links cities and takes our goods to the rest of Australia and to the ports for export; they are the tracks that link regional communities together. They link families to health services, supermarkets, sport and friends. They are the routes travelled by emergency services to save lives. They are critical in the production of food, fibre and minerals. They are critical and they are crumbling.

As the devoted member for Mallee just said in trying to bring this situation to the Labor government's attention, local roads make up 77 per cent of Australia's road network, and 678,000 kilometres are managed by local government. We hear all the time that there is a growing disconnect between funds needed and safe roads. The statistics show that people have good reason to be concerned. Regional road funding under the Albanese government is going backwards despite increasing costs and challenges. Councils, such as the 20 councils within my electorate, the electorate of Parkes, simply do not have the funds to keep this unwieldy burden afloat. They alone cannot wear the costs of keeping Australia connected. I look at the data from NRMA, and it shows that the road infrastructure backlog for the 20 councils in the Parkes electorate between 2017 and 2020 in the last four years of the coalition government averaged $86.2 million. Road funding grants over the seven years averaged $102.4 million. The end result is that road funding under the Nationals and Liberals was there, ready to meet the needs to ensure safer roads in our communities.

For the past three years of Labor governments, the backlog figure has blown out to an average of $236.7 million a year. This means now councils only receive 43 per cent of the funds they need to address that backlog in the Parkes electorate. This is an increase of more than 250 per cent in the Parkes electorate alone in the years of the Albanese Labor government.

To dig a little deeper into what's happening on the ground, let's take a look at disaster relief funding arrangements. All of the councils in the Parkes electorate have suffered from some sort of natural disaster in the past three to four years, with the exception of Broken Hill. This means councils have been at the mercy of government to provide funding for massive recovery works. There is no luxury in this; this is purely and simply getting the road network back into working order after a flooding event or another natural disaster.

I asked the question of my councils and found that, between June 2021 and June 2024, Labor governments knocked back in the order of $150 million to fix road damage through the disaster in the Parkes electorate alone. That means only 64 per cent of the claims from councils were approved. The Lachlan shire alone—including the town of Condoblin in New South Wales—was severely impacted by flooding events. Only $25.9 million was approved out of an application of $54.9 million needed to fix the roads. That's a $25.9 million shortfall in one shire alone. Narrabri Shire Council had only $8.5 million approved out of $30 million needed to fix their roads. I ask Labor: where can Narrabri community find $21.5 million to fix the roads? Council are not receiving the money they need to return roads back to pre-flooding events, let alone flood-proofing them so that they are built back better, ready to stand strong for the next event. Gilgandra shire was left with a $9 million shortfall, Bourke with a $14.9 million shortfall and Dubbo with a $20.6 million shortfall. These are councils that must face the questions about road closures, delayed roadworks and potholes every single day. They've been left to deal with the frustrations of people who can't use these roads each and every day.

A thin strip of bitumen cannot last forever and the investment to maintain and improve our roads is just not happening. Councils are forced to consider building or rebuilding roads for a price instead of a standard. But don't worry, the Albanese government found a solution. They're now asking rural regional people to drive more slowly—70 kilometres an hour, we've just heard. All of our problems can be solved by driving around potholes and natural disaster damage. We can just move more and more slowly as road funding dries up and roads fall into disrepair until eventually there will be no roads at all.

Trish Cook (Bullwinkel, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about something fundamental to the lives of regional Australians: the roads that connect us. For a decade under the former coalition government, our regional roads were neglected and regional people are rightly unhappy. The Albanese Labor government has been working hard to fix this mess. We are now delivering record investment in our regional infrastructure. Our investment means safer roads, more efficient freight routes and stronger local economies, all under funding programs that are open, fair and properly costed. We've committed a 10-year infrastructure investment pipeline exceeding $120 billion. It's the largest and most sustainable investor investment in our nation's history. In my great state of Western Australia, that includes $432 million for the Tanami Road, $304 million for Karratha-Tom Price road and $220 million for the Great Northern Highway Bindoon Bypass.

But, of course, we know that it's the local roads that matter every single day in our regional communities. That's why part of our plan is doubling the funding for the local roads through the Roads to Recovery program. This program is about directly funding our local councils to fix the roads that they know matter the most. It gives them stable long-term funding to plan with confidence. Over the next five years this means $643 million for WA councils. That's a massive increase of $278 million, and we're seeing that investment right in my electorate of Bullwinkel. In Bakers Hill we're funding a $470,000 upgrade for Sims Road, and in Northam we have $3.6 million rolling out across nine active projects, all chosen by the local Northam shire council. This is direct, tangible investment in our regional communities.

But our plan isn't just about maintenance; it's about saving lives. We have increased the annual funding for the Black Spot Program from $110 million to $150 million. This program, of course, targets those dangerous sections of roads that we all know about, delivering practical safety upgrades, like traffic signals, roundabouts and better signage. I'm incredibly proud to say that the Black Spot Program funding is making a real difference in Bullwinkel. We've secured $46,000 to fix the dangerous Lilydale Road and Northcote Street intersection in Chidlow, and we're delivering almost $300,000 for the Avon Terrace and Spencers Brook-York Road intersection in York. These are fixes that locals have been calling for for years, and it's our government that's delivering them.

We've also created the new Safer Local Roads and Infrastructure Program, called SLRIP. That's $200 million per year nationally, which is $50 million more than the two programs that it is replacing. In my electorate of Bullwinkel, this program is funding the $1.5 million extension of Brooking Road in Parkerville, a huge bushfire-risk area. That's a huge win for our local community.

You might want to know what happened to the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program—the LRCI, as it was called. That was a temporary COVID program. The Liberals and Nationals set it to expire, and now they're complaining about their own decision. What did we do? We backed it with completion. We extended that timeline for councils and we committed an additional $250 million for regional and outer suburban councils. If the Nationals had their way, our regional councils would have $250 million less than they do today. When you add it all up, just this financial year our government is delivering $4.1 million for upgrades, in my electorate, across 25 different projects in Beverley, Kalamunda, Mundaring, York and Northam.

The choice is clear. The coalition left a multibillion-dollar black hole and froze funding for our councils, and the Albanese Labor government is making record investments. We are doubling Roads to Recovery, we are boosting the Black Spot Program, and we're delivering funding that is open, fair and properly costed. Labor now represents more seats in regional areas than the Liberals and Nationals combined. Regional areas have chosen a government that delivers for them.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to strongly support this motion. I was in Portland last week, in my electorate, and I say this to the Labor Party, both federal and state: there is growing anger about the state of the roads in regional Victoria, and they want to you to do something. I can tell you that people are going to take matters into their own hands if you don't start lifting your game, because they want action. And I can tell you why. It's because potholes are popping up everywhere.

It's not just on local roads; we're talking about main, arterial roads like the Princes Highway—50 per cent, now, is funded by the federal government and 50 per cent by the state. We used to fund 80 per cent, and then it was 20 per cent, but you cut that. People are starting to calculate how many potholes there are on these roads, because the situation has got so bad. We're not talking about 10 or 20; they are counting hundreds upon hundreds of potholes. The sides of the roads are deteriorating, and all they get is, 'We've got it under control, but, because things have got so bad, we might have to cut the speed limit.' They have to cut the speed limit! Rather than fix the roads, you're going to start cutting the speed limit? That shows you how badly you've handled this. The deterioration since you have been in government, and since the Victorian state government has been in charge in Victoria, sadly, for far too long, has seen the investment in our roads just deteriorate over time. People are saying, enough is enough. They're saying it in Bendigo, they're saying it in Ballarat, they're saying it in Geelong, they're saying in north-east Victoria and they're saying it in western Victoria: you are derelict in your duty to provide a road which is safe for them to be able to get their kids to school, to go to sport on the weekend and to practice their livelihoods.

I'm telling you, the community anger is continuing to rise because they also see billions upon billions of dollars going to major infrastructure projects in Melbourne, like the Suburban Rail Loop, which are over-time and over-budget and which have the CFMEU involved in them—and we all know what's happening there. And what does that mean? We continue to miss out. People have had enough. They want to feel safe taking their kids to school, they want to feel safe going to and from work and they want a government which can actually say, 'We get it, we care and we're going to take action.'

If any of you want an example, just go for a drive along the Princes Highway. No-one will come down and do it. Minister Bowen flew down to make an announcement. I said to him, 'Drive along the road.' He just jumped back on his plane and away he went, after announcing an offshore wind farm in the wrong area. This is how out of touch you are with what is happening on the ground. So it's time you got real investment into our roads so it will start right here and now because they are deteriorating beyond belief. In Victoria, what is happening to the road infrastructure there is a national disgrace—an absolute national disgrace. If you don't believe it, go and have a look. Once you'd had a look, you would say, 'No, that is not safe for people to have to drive on.' They wouldn't. Seriously!

This motion is about trying to get real action because, if we don't—people are sick of it. They're getting their tyres blown out, they're getting their rims broken. Their shock absorbers are getting damaged. These are daily occurrences. Cost-of-living is hurting families, and this is the financial pain that they're having to deal with.

Now we see the solution being put forward is, oh, we're going to make it 70 kays for you to drive, so that hurts your productivity even more. It doesn't fix the roads; all it does is say you that you're a second-class citizens. It's time you acted.

Matt Smith (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I rise to speak on this motion from the member for Mallee, I'm really excited that we get to speak about the regions, because it is one of my favourite things. Don't let how quickly I speak fool you. I am a country boy. I drive country roads. Often they take me home, to a place—I'm going to stop there.

In the far north, I have roads like you would not believe. I have the PDR, the Bloomfield Track, the Daintree River ferry, the Jardine River ferry: places that people want to spend their entire lives thinking about driving. They come to the far north to do that.

I know that a lot of our local councils have been hurting from the natural disasters, particularly Cyclone Jasper, hurting our road infrastructure, making things harder. I say to those opposite, climate change is real. Climate change is impacting our road infrastructure. It's why things have been damaged more often. The substrate is going. The Port Douglas Road and the Kuranda Range road are still being repaired. The slips, the washaways, will not be finished for another year. We've invested extra money into this to build back better, to improve the drainage so the next time that we are faced with a climate change-induced disaster, our roads stay safe.

Our roads, our councils deserve better. Those of us in the Albanese Labor government are committed to investing in our regional areas. So after a decade of neglect from the former coalition government, denial on climate action which has been hurting our road infrastructure, the Albanese Labor government is delivering record investment into regional infrastructure and our regional roads. Our investment means improved safety on our roads; across the country, more efficient freight rates, stronger local economies under funding programs that are open, fair and properly costed.

The Albanese Labor government is committed to a 10-year infrastructure investment pipeline exceeding $120 billion that will support a sustainable program of nationally significant transport infrastructure projects across Australia including the Bruce Highway, the artery of the great state of Queensland. This the largest and most sustainable infrastructure investment in our nation's history and it builds on the foundations laid by the Albanese Labor government in its first term, and it builds on the work done by our Prime Minister when he was infrastructure minister—the man loves roads!

The Albanese Labor government is doubling the funding going to our local roads through the Roads to Recovery Program, something that's very important in my area. Over the period 2024-25 to 2028-29 the Albanese Labor government will invest $4.4 billion through the program. In Queensland, this will mean $895 million over five years for Queensland councils, an increase of $353 million. The government has increased annual funding for the Black Spot Program from $110 million to $150 million supporting more life-saving road improvements across the country. We have allocated at least $200 million per unit for improved safety and productivity of our local roads under the Safer Local Roads and Infrastructure Program, an increase of over $50 million over our previous programs, and we have increased financial assistance grants to local governments each year. This is $3.4 billion tied to the funding of grants.

For Leichhardt, my community, I'm happy to tell you—brace yourself because there is a lot of numbers here—we are delivering $245 million towards replacing the Barron River bridge on Kennedy Highway; $24 million for the Cairns Western Arterial Road; $210 million for the Kuranda Range Road upgrades; $38 million for Cape York community access roads; $180 million for the Bruce Highway Cairns southern access stage 5; $5.8 million for the Bruce Highway Babinda intersection upgrade; $850,000 for the major events precinct master plan in Cairns; $101,000 in Black Spot funding for the Kenny Road and Dutton Street intersections of Fort Smith; $150,000 for Black Spot funding treatments in the Barrier Street and Reef Street intersections in Port Douglas; an additional $24.6 million over five years under the Roads to Recovery Program.

I know that, as long as I'm in this place, I will fight for my region and for its roads, because you can for drive three days across my electorate on all sorts of roads to get to all sorts of places, and I thoroughly recommend you do it because Far North Queensland is the best place in Australia.

Tom Venning (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to address a crisis that is putting the lives of regional South Australians at risk—the terrible state of our country roads. I begin by acknowledging the important work of my colleague Dr Anne Webster and her motion regarding the dire state of roads in regional Victoria. It's a sad reality that, like Victoria, South Australia is a city centric state, where the government's focus is almost entirely confined to Adelaide and surrounds. In fact, the government's priorities are so skewed I have often thought we should save ourselves the hassle and change our state's name to simply 'the state of Adelaide'.

Statistically, South Australia receives the lowest amount of federal road funding of any state, both on a per capita basis and a per kilometre of road basis, and it shows. But this isn't just about statistics; it is about lives. Here are a few stories from my electorate that serve to highlight how dangerous and poorly maintained the South Australian regional road network really is. Tony, a prominent and well-respected pastoralist in northern South Australia, said, 'Ten years ago five gangs of two graders were operating on the outback road network and now there is only one grade crew consisting of two graders to service 10,000 kilometres of outback roads.' This is ludicrous.

From a constituent in Clare: 'We came over from Clare today to do some shopping in Port Pirie, and to say the cattle track to Crystal Brook needs major repairs is beyond a joke. You even have to drive on the wrong side of the road to avoid the dozens of deep potholes.' From Robin, a fellow truckie from Booleroo Centre, talking about the recently upgraded Augusta Highway, 'As a road train operator that uses this road multiple times a week, I am disgusted that this section of road has only been open for six months and it is already falling apart.' There are safety concerns around Snowtown, Two Wells intersections and complaints about the condition of the Strzelecki Track, a vital road for our resources sector—it's been four years. I could go on and on and on. These are not just potholes. These are examples of fundamental failures in planning and construction. Many that I speak to feel like the roads we built in the 1980s and 1990s under the old highways department were better quality than the roads we build today. That is a damning indictment.

The answer to this failure is clear. We need to introduce performance based contracts. Let me explain. For argument's sake, if we spend $1 million per kilometre to build a road and that road fails in two years, that is not an investment. It is a waste of taxpayer money. In the case of Augusta Highway, it failed after two weeks. A performance based contract would require the builder to guarantee the road's quality for a set period. If it fails, they would fix it at their own cost, or, indeed, if it maintains standards, they would get a performance pay-out. This puts the onus on the contractor to build it right the first time. It's not rocket science, but it seems governments are currently obsessed with mega projects in the cities rather than basic road safety projects that could easily be delivered.

How does Labor propose to fix this critically failing road network? How do you think they address the safety issues at hand? Well, the solution is an absolute cracker, even by Labor's standards. They suggest we reduce the speed limit on regional roads to 80 kilometres an hour. Well, I'll one-up them. Let's reduce the speed of all roads to just five kilometres an hour, then our road toll would go to zero. Rather than investing to make roads safer, they say 'stuff you' and reduce the speed limit to 80—unbelievable, unrealistic, out of touch.

The state government has the empirical evidence of our roads' poor quality. They have this information, but they are not willing to share it. Why? Because that would be inconvenient for their constant pork-barrelling purposes. My commonsense approach would be simple: take the quality of the road network, the data they are hiding, and combine it with the grading of that road—how busy it is. Put those two together and now you have the funding for our road network. But don't talk common sense to our socialist Labor government. They cringe at the thought of it—and don't get me started on the teals. We need a government that is serious about regional safety, serious about smart investment and serious about building roads that last. The people of regional South Australia deserve better than a government whose priority is the next tram stop in metropolitan Adelaide.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion to correct a bit of the mis- and disinformation that has been put forward by members of the opposition. I do so with a heavy heart because, when we talk about roads funding, it's an issue that shouldn't be politicised. It should be an issue that we can find common ground on because, without maintaining a good road system, we know the consequences of what happens on our roads. Far too many lives are lost in Australia due to road accident or injury, so this is an issue that should be above politics. This is an issue where we should be finding common ground.

A few facts to remind those opposite. It was a former coalition government that froze roads maintenance funding for our national highways at $350 million per year for over nearly a decade. That caused a deterioration of our freight roads. They are in here talking about how they were going to put a billion dollars in. On my calculation, that's still $2 billion short of what they ripped out of our national roads program for key freight roads. That's just key freight roads. They also froze the indexation to local governments' financial assistance grants. That's a billion dollars taken away from local councils, permanently lowering their funding base from the federal government, capping their ability to apply for roads programs, like Black Spots funding, Road to Recovery funding.

I used to chair the Victorian Black Spot Program, which is federally funded, delivered through the state government of Victoria. The biggest feedback that we got from local small shires is they didn't have the staff to do the paperwork required to apply for this competitive grant. That directly goes back to one of the former government did by freezing the grants for the financial assistance. The Liberals and Nationals also come in here and rant and complain about our decision to extend their program, the LCR program, until June 2025. If they had been re-elected that would have ended in 2023-24. It is just crocodile tears from those opposite, who are taking no responsibility for what they did in government.

I was here when the current PM, the then shadow minister for transport and regional development, fixed the debacle of those opposite over fuel excise. The government of those opposite started to collect it before it had gone through the parliament. This was when they chose to increase fuel excise, not when they chose to freeze it. Then what were we to do with all this money they never should have collected? It was our side that suggested to them to put it into the Roads to Recovery funding program, welcomed by local government, which fixed more roads. We didn't stop there.

In government we have more than doubled the Roads to Recovery Program. It means that, for my electorate, a rural electorate, we are seeing our Roads to Recovery funding go from $22 million under those opposite to $52 million. That is the difference that we have made to local councils fixing local roads in my electorate, and it does not stop there. The road that connects Mildura in the member for Mallee's electorate to Melbourne via my electorate, the Calder Highway, is receiving $12.5 million to improve overtaking lanes. That's just one of the many projects being funded along the Calder. There is also $300 million to upgrade Calder Park Drive, which is not in my electorate but is the gateway to Melbourne, the main access point for people in Bendigo accessing Melbourne via road; $5 million for pedestrians and safer roads; $4.4 for project development and preconstruction—more work on the Calder Melbourne to Mildura; more funding through rPPP for Mount Alexander to redevelop Frederick Lane and Mechanics Lane; funding through the Black Spot Program and others.

I speak to this motion with a heavy heart and frustration. On Friday a school in my electorate closed to remember the tragic death and passing of a young Tom Hoskings, who was another victim of road trauma. He was trying to cross the road, was hit by a truck and died. I say to those opposite: every death, we remember. Every death is one too many on our roads. Do not politicise this issue. Work to find constructive solutions because there is a real consequence of not taking this issue seriously.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.*