Dozens of drivers have been stranded on the Princes Highway near Bunyip today after potholes tore apart tyres and rims in yet another example of the Carroll Labor Government’s failure to properly maintain Victoria’s roads.
Leader of The Nationals and Shadow Minister for Roads and Road Safety Danny O’Brien said the scenes on the Princes Highway, with cars pulled over for kilometres and drivers forced to change tyres on the roadside in driving rain, were an inevitable result after years of neglect.
“This is what happens when you send out a crew to hastily fill up a pothole instead of properly maintaining the road,” Mr O’Brien said.
“A quick patch up might last a few weeks if you’re lucky, but without the necessary preventative maintenance by Labor, the outsiders just come back again.”
Mr O’Brien said the incident on the Princes Highway near Bunyip was symptomatic of a wider crisis across regional Victoria’s road network, where drivers have become used to swerving around potholes on a daily basis.
“This is not confined to just Bunyip, this is a problem right cross the state because regional roads have been left to rot under Labor for more than a decade. Whether Ben Carroll is the leader or a senior minister under his predecessors, the face might change at the top but the potholes on our highways don’t get any smaller,” he said.
Mr O’Brien said The Nationals and Liberals would commit to fix regional roads properly, rather than relying on short-term patch-up jobs.
“An elected Nationals and Liberals Government will invest $5 billion over four years to eliminate a million potholes and rebuild and resurface our regional roads, so families and freight aren’t at the mercy of the weather every time it rains,” he said.
“This is exactly why we’ve committed to the Fair Share Guarantee, locking in 25 per cent of the state’s infrastructure spending for regional Victoria up from the current 12 per cent. For too long regional roads have been an afterthought for Melbourne-focused Labor governments and today’s chaos on the Princes Highway shows what happens when that approach doesn’t change.”
