The roads campaign has a second act. A day after Sunday's $352 million pledge to fix 500,000 potholes by the end of January, Labor has announced that — if re-elected in November — it would put prisoners to work on the state's roadsides, according to the ABC's report.
Premier Ben Carroll said a re-elected Labor government would work with Corrections Victoria to develop a pilot program putting supervised, minimum-security prisoners onto roadside maintenance: mowing lawns, controlling weeds, removing graffiti and picking up rubbish. The logic is a division of labour — the basics go to the inmates, which frees skilled roadside crews to concentrate on the potholes.
It is an extension rather than an invention: low-security inmates already do gardening, weeding and rubbish collection in some parks under day-release programs, and Mr Carroll — who served as roads minister between 2020 and 2022 — said fixing the state's roads should be part of that outdoor manual labour program. The government was careful on one point: the inmate work would not replace paid jobs, but would "supplement the workforce where there are skill and capacity shortages".
In-house crews and a pothole website
Two more pieces came with the announcement. Road maintenance programs would be brought "back in-house", reducing the reliance on contracted companies for the physical work. And Labor plans a dedicated website where drivers can photograph a pothole, request its repair and then track the job's progress. "My new direction is all about taking responsibility for your safety and being transparent with your services," Mr Carroll said. "In 2026, it should be easier to see what repairs are planned and raise road problems quickly."
"Absolutely criminal"
The opposition, whose own offer is $5 billion to repair and rebuild the state's roads and a patch count of 1 million potholes, was not disarmed by the sequel. Shadow Roads Minister Danny O'Brien called the prisoner plan "a distraction" — and reached for the obvious word. "That's no surprise, because the government's handling of road maintenance has been absolutely criminal," he said, noting that "we do already have prisoners involved in maintenance of public assets."
"This is desperate spin by a government on the eve of an election that knows it's got a problem trying to hoodwink Victorians into thinking they're actually doing something about it," Mr O'Brien said.
Either way, the roads have now produced two announcements in two days, with the election still almost three months out. Between the blitz, the pilot, the in-house crews and the website, drivers will have no shortage of promises to measure against their suspension — and, from the end of January, a number to check: 500,000.
