'Death trap' Hamilton Highway slammed by farmers' federation

In a video posted on X - formerly Twitter - Ms Germano demonstrated the sorry state of the highway near Mortlake.

"Just on a drive between Hamilton and Terang on the Hamilton Highway," she said, pointing out a poorly patched, deteriorating pothole.

"Now, that's not even close to the worst of this stretch of road.

"I say that I'm shocked, but I shouldn't be shocked because the VFF has been talking about how terrible the state of the roads is in regional Victoria for some time."

In replies to the post Ms Germano also said there was no ongoing funding for road maintenance "so works can't be planned". "No forward thinking, not even maintaining let alone bettering for future use."

She said it was high time something was done.

"Country people are dying on country roads, 50 per cent of the road fatalities are happening on these roads, these things are death traps and it's about time we had some action and some funding put towards it," she said.

"We're not second class citizens out here in the regions and our roads shouldn't be second class, and I wouldn't even call that second class, I'd call it third or fourth class."

The Standard asked the state government about Ms Germano's comments but it did not respond.

The government insists $770 million has been allocated to road maintenance across Victoria in 2023-24, but it has refused to say where the money will be spent.

The Department of Transport 2022-23 annual report also revealed the government fell 25.6 per cent short of its road repair target for the financial year, a 3 million square metre shortfall.

The government is yet to release its repair target for the current financial year despite being more than four months into the year.

In August 2023 the south-west was also overlooked in the $210 million first round of government local road safety repair funding.

Also in August, The Standard revealed the government had quietly renegotiated its regional road repair contracts to incorporate performance-based requirements for its contractors, which it hadn't been doing previously.

Unfortunately one of the requirements of the new contracts is for the contractors to prove their competence on minor repairs before being given more significant road rehabilitation jobs.

The government wouldn't confirm when the larger road works could begin, but in October 2023 it announced the start of an eight-month "maintenance blitz" that would mainly consist of "patching" flood damage.