Victoria’s population has surged by around 2 million people this century to 6.8 million people:
The 2023 federal budget also projected that Victoria’s population would grow by more than 500,000 people over the four years to 2026-27, to 7.3 million:
Source: 2023 federal budget
This huge population expansion has already crammed everything in sight, including roads and public transportation, as well as schools and hospitals.
It has also plunged the Victorian State Budget deep into debt as it desperately tries to build expensive infrastructure to keep pace with the population deluge:
Source: IFM Investors (Alex Joiner)
This is despite the government selling off almost every public asset possible.
However, the state’s infrastructure investment never keeps pace with the population deluge, and Victorians’ living standards continue to degrade year after year as everything is crush-loaded.
Now, the Andrews Labor Government has cut back on road maintenance in a bid to save on costs and divert spending to major projects experiencing cost overruns.
Contractors have been told funds in this year’s budget for road maintenance have been reduced from $150 million to just $30 million, according to the Herald-Sun.
In previous years, the government had budgeted up to $250 million for resurfacing, and tenders are often announced in July.
However, no tenders have been issued this year because there is insufficient funding for this work to proceed.
“The rule of thumb (before the cuts) was 8% of the network would be resurfaced on an annual basis”, VSA Roads managing director, Justin Bartlett said.
“It has been happening over the last decade but particularly over the last four years we are no longer resurfacing to the extent we once were”.
“We’re getting to the state where our road networks are looking like a third world nation”, he warned.
Never fear, Victorian Premier Dan Andrews has the solution: ramp immigration even higher to bring more people to Victoria:
“I’ve always been a very strong supporter of more skilled migration”, Dan Andrews said last month.
“And the new federal government have taken some important steps towards increasing the amount of permanent skilled migration, but I think they might need to do more again”.
“Prime minister Albanese knows this. I’ve spoken to him about it personally and part of it also is clearing the Visa backlog”.
Dan Andrews’ request for more immigration is presumably an attempt to backfill his $200 billion Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) boondoggle, which will drain enormous sums of money from Victorians and will crowd-out the provision of desperately needed infrastructure and services around the state, like road maintenance.
Of course, the sensible thing to do would be to cancel the SRL project and end the Big Australia mass immigration policy.
Doing so would help save the Victorian Budget and safeguard resident living standards.
