The shocking state of Victoria’s roads is clear on the Monaro Highway. In the 42 kilometres between Bombala and the Victorian border in NSW, there is just one traffic–hazard warning sign.
But in the 42 kilometres between the border and Cann River in Victoria, there are 37.
Gippsland East Nationals MP, Tim Bull, said the statistic speaks for itself.
“The irony in this is the Victorian State Government has resealed just one kilometre at the border to the same standard as the full 42 km in NSW, but then left around 20 km of the Monaro Highway in complete disrepair,” Mr Bull said.
“You would have thought while they had all that machinery up there, they’d have fixed a much longer stretch, but that is what you get when you have a government that cannot manage money.”
Mr Bull added he’d continually raised the condition of the Monaro Highway (along with many other roads) with the government, but the response he had received was self-congratulatory around the one kilometre of work that had been done with no commitment to fix the rest.
“Talk about not being able to read the room or understand the problem,” he said.
“We have a Minister who gloats about how many potholes have been filled. I reckon some of these have been filled at least half a dozen times, but with some decent rain and traffic they are potholes again days later.
“You get to a stage where the road needs to be fixed properly and we have well and truly reached this point, but with roads budgets having been decimated in recent years the outcome is a roads network in complete disrepair.”
Mr Bull said a number of drivers had reported wheel rim damage to their cars and unless some real attention was given to the road it was a matter of time before it cost lives.
