Government playing catch-up
Member for Lowan Emma Kealy has accused Premier Daniel Andrews of ‘playing catch-up’ after ‘three years of short-changing western Victoria’ on providing money to fix country roads.
Ms Kealy made the comment in response to the State Government announcing a major regional roads package, including a program to fund councils.
She said Victorian Labor was offering councils ‘scraps off the table after three years of neglect’.
“Labor axed the successful $160-million Country Roads and Bridges Program three years ago, only to now offer a smaller fund and for a shorter amount of time,” Ms Kealy said.
“Premier Andrews has utterly failed to deliver for our community and simply can’t be trusted.”
Ms Kealy said there were many examples of deteriorated roads across the Lowan electorate, reported as having some of the worst roads in the state. She said motorists deserved better. Meanwhile, Member for Ripon Louise Staley has described the regional roads funding package as a case of ‘Labor finally waking up’.
But she added the commitment was ‘far too late’ and ‘would do little to reverse the damage from years of neglect’. “Premier Daniel Andrews axed a $160-million Country Roads and Bridges program back in 2015, resulting in local roads falling into disrepair,” she said.
The government has allocated $941-million to ‘fixing Victoria’s regional road network, saving lives and establishing a dedicated country roads body’ as part of the 2018-19 budget.
The Coalition has announced plans to restore the Country Roads and Bridges Program if it wins back power in November.
“Labor has finally woken up to the poor condition of local roads but this will not be enough to make up scrapping $28-million that was set to fix country roads in Ripon over the past four years,” Ms Staley said.
“The Liberals will get to work on fixing the damage caused to country roads under Labor.
“How can we trust a Premier who allowed country roads to rot over the past four years in favour of fixing roads around his metropolitan electorate of Mulgrave?”