Advocating safer roads
LAST week, Victoria’s Liberal-Nationals moved an amendment to the Road Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022 to reinstate Parliament’s road safety committee.
As Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party members, Stuart Grimley and I opposed this amendment because Parliament’s economy and infrastructure committee already undertakes this important work and, as all MPs know, recently concluded an inquiry into the state’s road toll.
Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party takes road safety seriously and for fellow MPs to suggest otherwise is simply misleading your readers. Our party also made a submission to the road toll inquiry, including five important recommendations to make our roads safer.
For the past year, I have worked closely with the government to fix laws so people accused of hit-and-run and other serious driving offences have their licences automatically suspended pending completion of their case.
Similarly, I am liaising with the government to increase the rate of drug testing on our roads by enabling all Victoria Police general duties officers to carry out these tests, improve safety at the Hume Freeway intersection at Avenel, and properly fund road maintenance in Buloke and other shires.
Parliament runs on public money and, as Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party members, we make our decisions based on common sense and promoting the effective and efficient use of your funds.
Tania Maxwell
Member for Northern Victoria
Vote was a betrayal
AN Opposition amendment to the Road Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022, that would have re-established the Victorian Parliament’s Road Safety Committee, was last week defeated 16 votes to 16, with two votes from the Justice Party and Animal Justice Party’s Andy Meddick.
Tragically, far too many Victorians die as a result of traffic accidents on our country roads, with the Andrews Labor Government refusing to acknowledge the role poor road conditions play.
That is why the Opposition has launched its three-month campaign to try and identify as many sub-standard roads as possible in regional Victoria.
To midnight on May 11, 55 lives have been lost on Victorian country roads year to date, up a concerning 38 per cent over the same period last year.
Victorian Liberals and Nationals MPs are only too aware of the alarming and unacceptable death toll and vocal in their advocacy for safer country roads.
There is no doubt the voting record of minor party regional MPs has been, and still is, a betrayal of their constituents.
In last week’s vote, Tania Maxwell, Stuart Grimley and Andy Meddick utterly betrayed their constituents, by voting to block enhanced parliamentary oversight and scrutiny of Daniel Andrews’ shameful neglect of country roads.
No regional member can honestly stand up in Parliament and say their constituents think regional roads are safe and up to scratch.
To vote down the reinstatement of a committee dedicated to driving down the road toll and fixing regional roads is a blight on any regional politician’s record.
Regional Victorians are watching our road network crumble before their eyes, while the Andrews Government cuts funding and fails to meet performance targets.
The wasteful spending of the Andrews Government and the impact this was having on regional communities.
The Andrews Government has proudly watched $28 billion of taxpayers’ money head down the drain on city infrastructure cost blowouts, while our regions are pleading for just a fraction of that to be invested in the road network.
This year’s budget saw cuts to road management, a decline in regional roads being treated and cuts across the board to agriculture and regional development – they are a clear and definite message to all regional Victorians.
It’s a message we have been getting since 2014 when this government was elected – it doesn’t give a damn about regional Victoria.
Country MPs should be backing their communities rather than siding with a completely out of touch, tired and city-centric government that is a drag on Victoria’s yearning to recover and rebuild.
Peter Walsh
Member for Murray Plains
Nothing to hide
FOR the past few months, independent candidate Claudia Haenel has relentlessly sought to label me a front for corporate water interests and of accepting secret funding to push the agendas of major players in Australia’s sadly flawed Murray-Darling Basin plan.
She has done this instead of presenting policy or questioning the track record for Mallee from our current incumbent.
She has done this without any evidence to support her claims and despite me stating publicly and in print, over and over again, that I have no financial ties with any water organisation.
But I will say it again here today.
Before nominating as a candidate for Mallee, I was employed as chief executive officer of Southern Riverina Irrigators. As with every job I have had in my life, I took the role, and its incumbent responsibility, very seriously.
I am proud of the work I achieved as the voice for generational farming families who year in, year out, produce $6 billion of staple food production as an economic cornerstone of our vital food security.
I have taken leave from that role while contesting this election and have had no input in, or part of, any of the day-to-day or strategic, business of SRI since then.
Before joining SRI, I was a journalist with McPherson Media Group; a role I loved.
There would be few more open books than mine.
There is nothing I have done for which I need to apologise; but there is plenty on which in the years to come I will look back on with pride.
I hope that will also include my time as your Member for Mallee and the energy and enthusiasm which I brought to that role, too.
Sophie Baldwin
Independent candidate for Mallee
Fire safety neglected
CFA stations at Strathbogie, Rochester and Myrtleford are among those to miss out on upgrades this year, while the Labor Government rakes in $800 million from the fees you pay to the fire services property levy.
Analysis of the State Budget papers confirm that just $7.6 million will be spent on new asset infrastructure for Victoria’s Country Fire Authority in 2022-23 (State Capital Program, p27). It is scraps off the table for country fire brigades, too many of which will now spend at least another 12 months battling sub-standard facilities that aren’t fit-for-purpose.
Labor’s under-investment in the volunteer fire services shows its priorities are all wrong.
It risks leaving our country communities exposed and under-prepared at our time of greatest need.
In Strathbogie, the local brigade missed out again, despite years of advocating for funds to upgrade the ageing shed which barely fits two tankers.
The lack of space means volunteers have to wash the hoses on the main street.
Rochester’s ancient fire shed is long past its use-by date – there’s barely enough room to fit the truck, let alone for storage of equipment – and there’s no facilities for the volunteers to get changed in when they turn out in an emergency.
The kicker is that while CFA volunteers miss out, the Andrews Labor Government has been forced to admit cost blowouts on its mismanaged major projects have now increased to $28.1 billion.
Imagine what those funds could have done for our country fire brigades. Under-investing in country emergency services puts country lives at risk.
Only a change in State Government in November will ensure regional Victoria gets our fair share.
Peter Walsh
Member for Murray Plains
