Rural and regional roads will continue to crumble with the Andrews Labor Government failing to deliver any additional maintenance funding in this week’s 2021-22 State Budget.
Without a significant injection of funds, country roads will get worse as Labor continues to chase its tail by continually patching holes without addressing the underlying cause of surface deterioration.
As costs for materials continue to rise, it will cost more to do the work – meaning even less roads will get attention despite the worsening deterioration.
There is also no transparency about how much of the road funding is spent on the rural network compared to the metro network.
This budget explains why Labor has been floating the idea of lowering speed limits on country roads – because they don’t want to invest the cash to fix them properly and it’s easier to just stick up a sign.
Country motorists have been let down again by the Andrews Labor Government and while billions of dollars are poured into infrastructure project cost blowouts in the city – country motorist are left with goat tracks instead of high quality, safe roads.
Comments attributable to Shadow Minister for Rural Roads Roma Britnell MP
Labor’s failure to invest any new funds into road maintenance shows it simply doesn’t care about the country.
Daniel Andrews and Labor have spent more money patching up cost blowouts on major projects in Melbourne than they have on fixing our rural and regional roads.
This budget increases taxes but country motorists will have nothing to show for the extra they are paying.
