IN this month’s state budget, the Andrews Government must reverse its savage cuts to road maintenance and road safety projects.
Safe roads save lives, a fact regional Victorians know all too well.
Yet it’s a lesson the government refuses to learn, even with Victoria having its deadliest start to a year in more than a decade with 113 tragic deaths on our roads so far.
Labor is making it worse with its plans to raid further funding from the Transport Accident Commission, slashing its road safety projects to prop up a broken budget.
After constant cuts to the road maintenance budget, rural and regional Victorians can see the state of our roads is abysmal.
Bad roads are dangerous roads and the list of dangerous roads is virtually endless under Daniel Andrews.
And let’s not forget that only $165 million was allocated to repairing roads affected in the October floods, despite the Victorian Transport Association estimating $1 billion was needed.
Or that the crisis in our roads has been building since Labor’s first cut to the road maintenance budget, way back in 2015 when they first came to government.
We know that the best road safety package is adequate road maintenance funding.
That’s what the Andrews Labor Government must finally deliver in its upcoming state budget.
Danny O’Brien
Shadow Minister for Roads and Road Safety
