Rural and regional Victorians want assurances that money for road maintenance will be spent properly and result in high quality, long lasting repairs.
Too often we see a Band-Aid approach to regional road repairs. The roads are patched and then fall apart weeks later.
Almost two years ago, the Auditor General found that not enough funding is allocated to road maintenance to sustain the road network and that VicRoads cannot demonstrate clearly that it is making the best use of its existing maintenance funds.
The Auditor General also found there is no strategy for proactive road maintenance, that there is an expensive “worst first” approach, there is no accountability for repairs and no system in place to ensure work is being done to a set standard.
The Auditor General recommended that a road maintenance strategy be developed with clear objectives and outcomes and improve the way it asses the work of contractors.
The Government has done nothing to address the Auditor General’s concerns and is continuing to waste money on repairs that fall apart after weeks – there are examples of this type of waste right across rural and regional Victoria.
Comments attributable to Shadow Minister for Rural Roads, Roma Britnell:
“The Andrews Labor Government can preach all it likes about how it is investing in rural and regional roads – the fact is people in rural and regional Victoria are not seeing the results because the Government has no plan, no strategy and is reactive rather than proactive when it comes to road maintenance.
“Rather than re-announce road maintenance funding, the Andrews Labor Government would be better off overhauling the system to ensure money is spent in the best way possible.”
