Written by: MARK NICHOLSON

VICTORIA’S POTHOLE PROBLEM

The potholes aren’t the only thing in this state full of holes.

The plans to fix them are even worse.

A fortnight ago some of our One Nation federal colleagues drove out to the Farmers Fightback rally at Marnoo. They told me they’d had a great night, but a terrible drive. They arrived thinking our pothole problem had been exaggerated and left having invented a new road skill. They called it the Victorian weave: the swerve we all now do without thinking, around the giant craters that have become standard issue on Victorian roads.

Our roads are a joke and everyone knows it. So what are the parties responsible for creating this mess offering to do about it?

Labor has put up $352 million to double the potholes it fills, to 500,000 by January. It’ll build a website where you can photograph a pothole and then watch the government not fix it. And it wants minimum-security prisoners out mowing grass and picking up rubbish. That’s not a roads policy. It’s just more government doing more government, with a few convicts thrown in for colour.

Not to be outdone, the Coalition has gone bigger. Five billion dollars to eliminate one million potholes. That’s right. Five billion. With a B.

Hang on. Wait. Let’s do the maths. Five billion dollars, one million potholes. That’s $5,000 a hole. Good work if you can get it.

A 20kg bag of cold mix asphalt costs $37.40 at Bunnings. Three bags will fill a square metre 23mm deep. That’s $112 of material, at retail prices.

I know what you’re saying. “But Mark, you’re forgetting the cost of labour, plant, traffic management, and insurance.” Fair enough. Can someone please show me how that all still adds up to $5,000 a hole? Be generous, and show me how you get anywhere near that.

Nobody will. And that’s my point.

Labor’s own figures come out at $1,400 a hole. Now, forgive me, but I’ve got trust issues with Labor costings. I have a feeling that budget will blow out faster than my tyres will, and on these roads that’s saying something.

Even then, $1,400 a pothole seems a bit steep. More good work if you can get it. And that’s the real problem Spring Street will never talk about. Getting it.

Everyone knows the same companies win the same government contracts year after year. Consultants review the projects those same consultants designed. You and your business have got no hope of getting in, unless you’re one of the boys.

None of it’s illegal. That’s what makes it galling.

Wouldn’t it be great if a dad and son asphalting business in Shepparton could fill the potholes on the Goulburn Valley Highway? They know those roads. They live on them. They’d do it faster and for a fraction of the cost.

They can’t get in. Bidding for state government work takes a tender team, compliance officers, and a six-figure spend before you lay a tonne of asphalt. A small operator bids blind, loses, and never learns why.

I know, because I’ve done it. I put my animation studio through a government tender. Hair-pulling, fruitless, and I’m absolutely certain we offered the best value. We just weren’t one of the boys.

So the work goes where it always goes, the price is whatever they say it is, and none of us get to check it. It vanishes behind the most expensive words in the English language: commercial in confidence.

That’s the real problem with our roads. It’s not the potholes. It’s the paperwork.

One Nation will build YourMoney.vic.gov.au and put every state project in public view. The business case. The tender. Every bid. The winning contract and why it won. Every variation, published within 30 days, with the name of whoever signed it beside the original price. Every invoice. Every payment.

Because the contract price is almost never the final price. The variations are. That’s where your money goes, and that’s exactly what’s hidden.

It means the Shepparton crew can see why they lost, and come back sharper. It means the deals that can’t survive daylight stop getting done. And we’ll open the whole state’s books while we’re at it.

Victorian debt is out of control. We can’t afford to pay $5,000 for $112 of asphalt without seeing the quote.

YourMoney.vic.gov.au means we’re going to start treating public money like it’s your money. Because it is.

Corruption only happens in the dark. In November, you can turn the lights on.

Till then, drive safely.