Member for Euroa Annabelle Cleeland has criticised the financial incompetence of the Andrews Labor Government following the decision to slash the state’s road resurfacing budget.
Victorians are well aware that our roads have deteriorated dramatically in the past few years, with regional Victoria bearing the brunt of repeated roads budget cuts and neglect from the Labor Government.
Nationals Member for Euroa Annabelle Cleeland said since 2020, 45 per cent of the road maintenance budget has been cut, including a further 25 per cent in this year’s budget.
Ms Cleeland said it was shocking to learn this week the government had subsequently slashed $120m from its road resurfacing budget.
“Roads in regional Victoria are still in desperate need of attention, yet more money is being cut,” Ms Cleeland said.
“They needed fixing before the October floods and now the issue has only gotten worse. Cutting funding from something so necessary just goes to show how out of touch this Labor Government is with the needs of regional Victoria.
“The road toll continues to rise, with far more deaths on our roads than previous years. We should be doing what we can to help prevent this issue, and it starts with the quality and safety of our roads.”
Ms Cleeland said the Euroa electorate was home to some of the state’s worst roads.
“There are potholes, crumbling roadsides and compromised surfaces in almost every town in the Euroa electorate,” Ms Cleeland said.
“These roads are causing problems for commuters, the transport industry, and visitors to our region.
“Labor’s pothole patching program is cheap, temporary, and has been totally ineffective.”
Shadow Minister for Roads and Road Safety Danny O’Brien said it was no surprise that country people were taking matters into their own hands and spray-painting messages to “fix our roads” onto badly potholed road sections.
“I recently saw such graffiti on a road in northern Victoria and bizarrely a reference to VicRoads had been crudely blacked over but the road itself hadn’t been fixed,” Mr O’Brien said.
“It seems the Government is more interested in public relations than doing its job.
“The budget papers released in May listed the road area to be resurfaced across metropolitan and regional Victoria as “tbc”. Maybe they just meant ‘terribly bad condition’.”
