Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan says she drove over a pothole over the weekend. Asked what happened next, whether she was behind the wheel and whether her car was damaged, the Premier wouldn't answer.
The dodge capped a Monday grilling over the state of Victoria's roads, where Allan also refused to rate the network out of 10 and dismissed the Coalition's $5 billion pledge to fix an estimated one million potholes. Labor has run Victoria since December 2014, and the state it governs is now routinely called the pothole state.
Allan admits hitting a pothole, then goes quiet on what it did to her car
Asked how comfortable she was with the pothole state label, Allan acknowledged the government had "more to do" and pointed to $3 billion in road funding over three years. Then came a simpler question: when did the Premier last drive over a pothole?
Allan said she travelled the road network regularly, had been in her electorate over the weekend and had seen maintenance crews at work. Pressed again, she said it would've been over the weekend. Asked what happened, whether she was driving and whether it damaged her car, she gave no answer, describing herself instead as a regional person, a regional MP and a regional Premier who experiences what regional families experience every day. Journalist Ryan Bourke posted the exchange, and it's now doing the rounds online.
She was asked several times, directly, whether the pothole damaged her car. She never said.
Sky News reported Allan was also asked repeatedly what rating she'd give Victoria's roads out of 10. She declined every time, returning instead to the $3 billion figure.
Video: Ryan Bourke, Herald Sun, via Instagram (@ryanbourkenews). Reporters press Jacinta Allan on when she last drove over a pothole and what happened when she did.
Jess Wilson's $5 billion pledge to kill one million potholes
The grilling followed Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson's announcement on Monday that a Liberal and Nationals government would spend $5 billion over four years to repair and rebuild the state's roads, eliminating an estimated one million potholes.
The plan would set up Better Roads Victoria as a standalone division inside the Department of Transport and Planning, restore what the Coalition calls a proper, planned system of preventative road maintenance, boost basics like grass slashing and drain clearance, and review construction standards and maintenance contracts.
"Drivers shouldn't be the ones footing the bill for blown tyres, cracked rims and worse because Jacinta Allan and Labor cannot get the basics right," Wilson said.
Wilson said roads "littered with dangerous potholes" are leaving motorists thousands of dollars out of pocket, and pointed to $15 billion she says has been lost to corruption on the Big Build.
Nationals leader and shadow roads minister Danny O'Brien said regional Victoria receives less than 12% of infrastructure spending despite holding 25% of the state's population, and committed the Coalition to lifting the regional share to 25%.
"Liberal and One Nation cuts": Allan swings at a party that's never governed Victoria
Asked whether Labor would match the commitment, Allan refused, and reached for a curious target.
"I won't be matching Liberal and One Nation cuts," she said.
She said Coalition parties make big commitments before elections and cut funding once in government. "We've seen this before, which is why this latest commitment just cannot be trusted," she said.
One Nation has never held government in Victoria, and it had no part in the Coalition's roads announcement. It's also the party out in front: One Nation topped RedBridge's July survey of Victorian voters on primary vote, ahead of both Labor and the Coalition, and it's outpolled Labor in three of the four state polls published since June.
That support has arrived before One Nation has announced its Victorian candidates or released its full policy costings, with both expected shortly. Victorians are backing a party that hasn't yet named its team over the two that have run the state between them for decades, and ahead of the 28 November election that says a lot about how much confidence is left in either.
Labor's had the roads for 11 years and the money for all of them
Victorian Labor has governed since December 2014. Allan has been there for all of it, spent years holding the transport infrastructure portfolio, and has been Premier since September 2023.
Her defence on Monday was money: $1 billion a year on road maintenance for each of the past three years, with 70% of it dedicated to regional and rural roads, and another $1 billion in this year's budget. She acknowledged flooding in recent years had done "huge damage" to the network and said she'd "made the road network a priority" since becoming Premier.
"This is the most funding that's ever been allocated to the road network to do these works," Allan said.
The record funding claim now sits beside a road network her own government concedes needs more work, and a Premier who wouldn't put a number on its condition.
The department investigated Jess Wilson for fixing a pothole
While the potholes multiplied, the Department of Transport and Planning found time to investigate the Opposition Leader for filling one. The Australian reported the department launched an investigation into Wilson over a pothole she fixed, a move the Menzies Research Centre's Nick Cater called "totally infantile".
Wilson has already lodged a no confidence motion against the Allan government, citing crime, debt, cost blowouts and corruption concerns on major projects. It can be debated from 28 July, when parliament returns, in a state carrying $244 billion in debt.
Allan says the crews are out there right now. Victorians vote on 28 November.
