The Carroll Labor Government has overseen a continued deterioration of the state’s road network according to its own Department of Transport and Planning annual report, released today.
After years of budget cuts and neglect, the annual report reveals that Labor oversaw a fall in road standards across nearly all measures: cracking, roughness and rutting in both regional and metropolitan areas.
This follows Ben Carroll cutting the maintenance budget by more than $200 million over two years when he was the Roads Minister.
The Department of Transport and Planning’s 2025-26 annual report shows Labor’s regional major patching fell by 68 per cent in a year, from 566,000 square metres in 2024-25 to 181,000 square metres in 2025-26
Road resurfacing in regional Victoria has fallen from a high of 9.03 million square metres in 2022/23 to a paltry 3.8 million square metres in 2025/26.
Leader of The Nationals and Shadow Minister for Roads and Road Safety, Danny O’Brien, said the figures were a damning indictment of Labor’s road neglect.
“Victorians are seeing the pothole problem every day and they are fed up with driving on roads that would make a goat track blush.
“These figures confirm Labor has failed to undertake a basic duty of government, keeping the roads in decent order and no amount of pre-election cash splashes will change that.
“Only The Nationals and Liberals have a plan to fix our roads by investing $5 billion over four years, eliminating one million potholes and getting back to doing the basic preventative maintenance that Labor has ignored for too long.”
