2015-10-20
I rise to make a contribution in relation to Mr Morris’s motion today and to recognise that roads, particularly regional roads and local roads, are fundamentally important to local economies and local communities. It is not only the $160 million that is no longer afforded local councils that is an issue for local councils and their jurisdiction in relation to maintaining and building local roads; it is also the reduction in Roads to Recovery, a federal program, which has seen significant dollars taken out of local government grants, that is impacting enormously on the ability of local governments to maintain roads to a standard that their communities have come to expect.
Local roads are incredibly important for safety, and as I said, they underpin local economies and communities. Local roads should be the focus of our expenditure when it comes to looking at where we are spending money on roads. We should not be spending billions of dollars on arterial project upgrades. We should not be spending billions on east–west tunnels or west–east tunnels or whichever way you want to go. What we see is that when we do spend money on arterials in the metropolitan area, it just creates more congestion. We have seen the cost of congestion to our economy. It is far more sensible to divert funding to regional and local roads rather than having an obsession with constantly upgrading freeways, which does not deliver the benefits to Melburnians, Victorians or our economy because of the costs.
I draw on my own experience of the Monash Freeway. It was called the south eastern arterial when I started driving. I have seen lane after lane added to that road over the decades, and I can report that it now takes longer to get to the city on the Monash than it has ever done in the past. I would consider that our investment is probably better placed in public transport and having a public transport system that will get the cars off the Monash Freeway rather than just adding lane after lane to city roads.
However, this motion is most definitely targeted at the regional road network, and the Greens understand the critical importance of the regional road network. Certainly there has been a lot of work undertaken on understanding what is happening with our roads. I draw the attention of members to a study report by the Auditor General done back in 2008, Maintaining the State’s Regional Arterial Road Network. The report at that time found that the condition and performance of the regional road infrastructure had ‘deteriorated in recent years’, that an additional $77 million per year was needed to properly maintain Victorian roads, that there was a backlog of roadworks needed and that 6 per cent of all roads were in distress. The Auditor General said that reducing funding on country roads leads to further deterioration and simply costs more in the long run.
Despite country Victoria having only 25 per cent of Victoria’s population, regional Victorians make up the majority of the road toll, and that is a tragedy for those communities. In 2014 there were 105 road deaths in rural Victoria in comparison to 82 in the Melbourne metropolitan area.
Roads and the condition of roads play an integral part in the safety of drivers and the safety of the community. There is a theme that has run through the reports of the Auditor General’s office when it has looked at roads — it is a litany of lack of maintenance and lack of investment in infrastructure, and ultimately the community pays the price for that.
I draw the attention of members to a 2011 Auditor General’s report which looked specifically at road bridges. It is called Management of Road Bridges. The Auditor General noted:
An efficient road system underpins economic prosperity and livability.
In relation to bridges he went on to say:
If bridges are not properly maintained or fail to keep up with increasing demands, they become pinch points that prevent the free and efficient movement of people and freight.
In relation to that particular audit the Auditor General assessed whether VicRoads and selected councils were managing road bridges and major culverts effectively. His conclusion was:
VicRoads is effectively managing the structural safety of bridges and culverts and prioritises annual funding to the areas of greatest short term need. However, VicRoads has not formed detailed long term plans nor adequately measured, forecast and reported on the levels of service experienced by road users. Doing these things is a prerequisite for VicRoads to adequately inform longer term resourcing decisions.
I have some sympathy for VicRoads because we have seen a continual cut to its budget, to the point where it can deliver only short term outcomes and cannot concentrate on the longer term outcomes in relation to roads and bridges.
Looking at councils and their responsibility — because ultimately the responsibility for roads and bridges is split between the state government and local government — local government shares a significant slice of that pie. I turn to the Yarra Ranges Council, which is considered a metropolitan council. That council is responsible for over 900 kilometres of local roads, which gives a picture of the enormity of the task that local governments are challenged with on behalf of their communities.
In relation to bridges the Victorian Auditor General, looking at councils, found that:
… their approach to managing these assets limits their ability to fully assure their continued safe operation. Examples of incomplete, out of date and unreliable information on bridge condition and weaknesses in councils’ asset management processes should be addressed so that councils can demonstrate effective asset management.
It is a concern to me that that was a finding made by the Auditor General, although I certainly understand it because I look from the perspective of my time as a local government councillor and the work we did in relation to asset management, an asset register and a long term plan for managing those assets. But I wonder how local councils are going to be able to deal with the enormity of looking after their roads under a rate capping scenario in the future. The experience in other jurisdictions is that one of the first things to go when money is tight is maintenance on roads and infrastructure.
I move now to a more recent Auditor General’s report. This one was undertaken in 2014, and it is titled Asset Management and Maintenance by Councils. This report looks at the different asset types that councils manage. Of course councils are responsible for an enormous range of assets, but roads and bridges are amongst them. In this report, the Auditor General says:
A 1998 report to government warned that unless steps were taken to address councils’ asset renewal gaps, the budget councils require for renewal would more than double by 2012. These predictions have materialised despite this warning, and the renewal gap has almost doubled as a proportion of total asset value over the past 16 years.
As recently as 2014 councils were completely under the pump in terms of the funding that they could put into local roads and bridges. I might have already broached this, but I fail to see how under the rate capping scenario that is coming their way very shortly councils will be able to continue to respond positively to the enormous demands of maintaining local roads, bridges, drains, parks, buildings and all the other things they are responsible for. Councils manage over $73 billion in physical assets, and it is worth noting that for rural councils those assets make up about 30 per cent of what they manage.
We know that the consequences of not effectively managing the asset renewal gap include reduced levels of services, poorer quality of community life and lower economic activity. Of course spending more money on assets requires raising revenue by increasing council rates, increasing debt through further borrowings or spending less on other services. The Auditor General was clear when he pointed out that it is a balancing act for local government to fund that asset renewal gap as well as provide appropriate maintenance for roads and bridges. I think we are going to see that balance tip as councils are constrained not only by the rate capping that is coming their way but also by the fact that there seems to be a lack of funding for local government.
The country roads and bridges program is an example of funding that is now lost to local government. It is not a fund it can utilise any longer, which is unfortunate because $1 million per council per year to 40 regional councils was a good sum of money. It probably did not go far enough. When you consider how much bridges cost — they are very expensive pieces of infrastructure — a million dollars does not go far, but it is better to have a million dollars than no dollars at all. We lament the loss of that to local government, particularly now that councils are going to be constrained by rate capping.
The country roads and bridges program enabled the repair or replacement of approximately 100 bridges and the repair or upgrade of 900 local roads. But given the extent of the road network, that barely scratches the surface, and Victoria is the most road dense state in the country. There are a lot of roads and there is a lot of population dispersed throughout the state, and our needs in relation to roads are quite different to those in other jurisdictions.
We see constantly that the budget to VicRoads is being cut. The former government cut the budget to VicRoads. Engineers from the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia warned at the time that we would see a general deterioration of roads, and those budget cuts would impact greatly on the state of Victoria. We have seen that come to bear, and anyone who drives around regional Victoria or the fringes of Melbourne can see generally a deterioration of the roads. I even point to a local road in my area — that is, Monbulk Road — which is in a constant state of deterioration and has patch after patch on it, and yet it is a significant and critical link through the Dandenong Ranges.
The warning back in 2012 was that the move was likely to lead VicRoads to cut speed limits on some roads as they deteriorated. Out of interest, I noticed when I travelled down to Hamilton as part of a public hearing into unconventional gas that many roads I travelled on had a reduced speed limit because they were in a general state of deterioration. Instead of 100 kilometres per hour signs, there were 80 kilometres per hour signs. That was quite a surprise to me because I had not driven on those roads for some time. To have that level of deterioration and a management process of just putting some signs up as a way to deal with a road issue is inadequate.
Honourable members interjecting.
Ms Dunn — I am still working out whether I live in metropolitan Melbourne or not myself, but that is what they say about the Dandenong Ranges.
In relation to the Stronger Country Bridges program, yes, there is funding there, but I draw the attention of the members in the chamber to the Better Roads program for which the government announced $1 billion in funding to upgrade and repair unsafe and congested roads across regional Victoria. But the real rub with this $1 billion in funding, according to a document that crossed my path, is that in relation to the Better Roads funding a communication strategy will be prepared to manage any sensitivities around funding not being from new funding. This is not new funding; it is funding that is already in the system.
I am concerned that our roads will not see the sort of wholesale improvement they need to see because we have not done what we have needed to do for many years in relation to that backlog of regional roads, whether they be VicRoads or local government roads. In terms of the pressure generally, we keep pulling money out of VicRoads and local government, and eventually we are going to find the roads across the state outside of metropolitan Melbourne in such a dismal state that it will significantly impact on our economy.
In terms of the local roads that are mentioned in Mr Morris’s motion, I cannot speak on the Myamyn Macarthur Road. I have not driven on it. It does not sound great. However, I have some insight into the Portland Nelson Road. It was telling for me that at the public hearing I attended in Hamilton, the Protect the West Alliance talked about the Portland Nelson Road in terms of the road constantly falling apart, being repaired and falling apart again. That is the experience of locals down there. As we have heard, there is significant economic activity there in relation to plantations. I have to put on the record that the Greens are very happy to see a thriving plantation timber industry, but in terms of what we heard on the day, locals are very concerned about the state of their roads. We saw some photos which indicated that road was in an absolutely appalling state.
I turn to the elements of Mr Morris’s motion. Mr Morris condemns the Andrews Labor government for neglecting Victoria’s regional road network. We share those concerns, but we are really concerned about a rate capping scenario and what that means for local communities in the future. We are concerned we will see a deterioration of local roads — that enormous asset base that local governments have — because there simply will not be the funds to keep up with the maintenance required. We already know that local governments cannot match the funding needed for asset management. We already see a gap between the road maintenance needed by the time they get the funding to get the maintenance done. That enormous gap will continue to grow. That will be incredibly bad news for those local communities, because not only do VicRoads roads suffer from a lack of investment, upgrade and maintenance, but now local government managed roads will share the same fate. The reality for people who are driving on roads is that they do not get the difference between the two methods of road management; they just see it as a road network. Ultimately we will see the same issues across the road network.
In relation to the other parts of the motion, we are happy to note the scrapping of the coalition’s $160 million country roads and bridges program, but with that we note also the reduction in Roads to Recovery funding from the federal government. This is yet another blow to local government, so it seems that local government is getting hit on every side and is the whipping boy from not only the federal government but also from the state government in relation to the assets local governments need to manage. With that I will conclude. We will support this motion but note the enormous burden that is placed on local government in relation to its jurisdiction of managing roads and the significant challenges it will face under a rate capping scenario.