Regional motorists have nothing to show for a $241 million blowout in three road maintenance contracts across the state.
Motorists in the North-East, South-West and Eastern Regions are still driving on roads riddled with potholes, cracked, rutted and warped surfaces – despite this massive cost blowout.
The Andrews Labor Government has questions to answer about the value of each of these road maintenance partnerships. They need to explain if and how they are delivering better road maintenance outcomes and safer road surfaces, as promised.
What we’re seeing on regional roads are band-aid repairs that fail after a few weeks, rather than works that fix the underlying problems with the roads construction.
The Auditor General found in 2017 that there is no cost effective, proactive road maintenance plan – instead the department waits until the road surface is broken and expensive to fix.
The Andrews Labor Government has failed to do anything to fix those issues. This blowout proves there are fundamental issues when it comes to cost effective road maintenance in Victoria.
Comments attributable to Shadow Minister for Rural Roads, Roma Britnell:
“I’ve long said the Andrews Labor Government is throwing good money after bad on quick band-aid repairs. The repairs fail after just a few weeks and this massive blowout proves it.
“Maintaining roads is like maintaining a car – if you don’t service it on time and ignore that weird noise until it breaks down, it’s going to cost you twice as much to fix.
“Rather than getting on top of issues early, the Andrews Labor Government waits until a road is so broken it’s unsafe to drive on. Then it spends a fortune on patch up jobs.”
