2016-11-23
Ms DUNN (Eastern Metropolitan) — I rise to speak on Mr Purcell's motion, which notes a number of matters in relation to VicRoads and includes a referral to the Law Reform, Road and Community Safety Committee in relation to country roads. The Greens make this observation: that VicRoads must stand alone in the history of government in Victoria as having the rare achievement of failing in every way possible. It is a monumental aggregation of a giant mess-up. If it were a private company, it would have been sued and bankrupted out of existence long ago. This motion is correct to draw the failures of this public agency in the delivery of service to the attention of the public in country Victoria.
Let us consider some of the failures of VicRoads one by one. First, the organisational issues. VicRoads is a vertically integrated road-building machine that remains a power to itself. It does not deploy systems thinking when considering how transport works in the state. It should be part of a system that considers how to get people and freight from A to B. Instead VicRoads solely thinks about how it can lay more square metres of new bitumen and concrete. It is an input-oriented industrial complex. They do not even seem to care where they put the bitumen; they will gladly carve up Royal Park or Banyule Flats if given the chance, yet western Victoria is crying out for repairs to existing services and gets no attention.
Secondly, VicRoads just does not listen to the community. It must have the worst record of public consultation of any public organisation in the history of this state. This is a major problem, not least because VicRoads has the power to acquire private property and public green space to roll out its highways. This is the synopsis of a typical VicRoads public consultation over a road-widening project: VicRoads says it is going to do a project and notifies affected members of the community; VicRoads holds a consultation session where they say what they are going to do and how there are no technically feasible alternatives to that approach; the affected people ask questions about social and environmental impact and are given spin in return; VicRoads belatedly releases excerpts from social and environmental impact assessments; VicRoads gives tokenistic concessions to affected people, such as input on what species of trees to plant on roadsides or what colour to paint visual barriers; and finally VicRoads gets the environmental and social assessment wrong and the impacts are much worse than initially expected, affecting the lives of everyone that lives along the road alignment, let alone in some cases the wildlife that live in that roadside vegetation. This is not genuine, meaningful consultation; it is a poor way of building public infrastructure.
There have been many horrendous outcomes from this type of modus operandi. Some examples include the loss of trees in the first stage of the Western Highway expansion project near Ballarat. VicRoads estimated 221 large old trees would be removed, but it finally admitted it would be removing 885 large old trees — that is out by 300 per cent. Imagine if they did that with volumes of concrete or turning radii for a corner. That is a pretty remarkable oversight, and you would think heads would roll, but there were no repercussions for VicRoads. There was the failure to listen to concerned parents at Kallista Primary School and Eastern Ranges School in Ferntree Gully when they requested illuminated flashing 40-kilometre-per-hour signs. VicRoads seemingly prefers a lesser standard for the students at these schools than others. These are but two examples — there are probably many more.
Thirdly, VicRoads has a record of improper conduct. Only last year the Victorian Ombudsman released a report that found VicRoads staff routinely broke road rules and then got out of the applicable fines by claiming unjustifiable exceptional circumstances. The Ombudsman found that:
… the process for investigating infringements and approving exemptions was seriously deficient.
The Ombudsman noted that:
The investigation … exposed a culture within a key unit of VicRoads of ignoring the legislation they are responsible for enforcing.
If VicPol want to crack down on hoons, best they set up shop outside the Kew headquarters of VicRoads.
Fourthly, VicRoads has a habit of putting public transport last. There have been claims that requests from Public Transport Victoria for collaboration on better bus integration into the roads system have been ignored. You only need to travel on the SmartBus services and the bus lanes on the Eastern Freeway to see this. The surfacing is patchy, the buses are pushed into the emergency lane for long stretches instead of being provided with their own lane and the bus lane evaporates at the intersection with the Chandler Highway. Better bus priority infrastructure, more buses and a future Doncaster rail are the only way to ease congestion on the Eastern Freeway.
I will move now to trams. Trams move at an average of 16 kilometres per hour — slower than most bicycles. VicRoads hates trams because they are outside the bitumen-centric thinking of that agency. VicRoads has failed to work with PTV to give trams priority at traffic lights or isolate a tramway wherever possible.
In the country many people are frustrated with their bus infrastructure. It is too slow to be upgraded to meet new demands in population centres. There is even less bus priority infrastructure in regional centres than in Melbourne.
Fifth, as per this motion, VicRoads has failed to adequately maintain public roads in country Victoria. There are potholes, there are washouts and there are narrow and unfit roads that are signposted at high speeds. It seems that VicRoads is too busy doing big ribbon-cutting for megaprojects, like the CityLink-Tulla widening or the Western Highway duplication, or aching to break ground on the north-east link to do the less illustrious work of repairing potholes, fixing shoulders or repainting lines. Our rural road network is in a bad state, as Mr Purcell pointed out in his contribution. You are four times more likely to die in a fatal car accident if you live in country Victoria than if you live in the city.
I reflect on my own driving experience — in fact in western Victoria. I was appalled at the standard of the roads down there. The seeming way to address those issues was just to put a whole lot of lower speed limit signs on the side of the road. We are not talking back roads; we are actually talking major arterials of western Victoria. So I completely understand, Mr Purcell, why this motion is before the house today.
The dire state of our country roads and the failure of VicRoads to address this is a major concern, and it is for this reason that the Greens will be supporting this motion. This motion proposes some foci for the inquiry regarding institutional and process reform at VicRoads. One of these is to dismantle VicRoads and create separate country roads and metropolitan roads bodies; however, I feel it is important to mention that the mooted creation of Transport for Victoria presents an opportunity to reconsider the way road infrastructure is managed in this state and how it is integrated into a holistic transport system. The inquiry recommended by this motion should keep an open mind as to the best option for the future for VicRoads. Certainly all planning strategy and policy capacity should be removed from VicRoads and brought under a separate body, regardless of whether the VicRoads CEO likes it or not. An inquiry will allow a detailed examination of the matters raised in the motion, including the structure that is most appropriate in terms of getting the repair and maintenance that country roads are crying out for. The Victorian Greens support the motion for an inquiry; however, such an inquiry should be approached with an open mind as to how we can get better roads and better public transport on those roads for country Victoria.