Foreword

Our national road infrastructure network supports the lifeblood of our communities, particularly across regional, rural, and remote areas, and is critical to Australia’s socio-economic sustainability. Our communities are heavily reliant upon a safe and functional road network to remain connected and to access essential services. Connectivity between our communities and fundamental services was one of the driving reasons the Committee undertook this inquiry to consider the implications of severe weather events on our extensive road infrastructure network.

The increasingly severe and intense weather events over recent years, particularly the 2022 and 2023 floods across Australia, have taken a tremendous toll on our road network and our nation. Communities were isolated and displaced, some for weeks and months. National freight supply chains were disrupted, with lengthy diversions to deliver essential goods.

Australia’s climate is changing. The magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events is predicted to increase including more heat extremes, droughts, intense rainfall, and floods. Our road infrastructure must keep pace and adapt to ever changing climate risks.

Our vast road network is situated within the context of infrastructure asset resilience and social, economic, emergency, national security, and environmental interdependencies. Our roads play a vital role in our nation’s complex freight supply chain systems, with extreme climate-related disruptions having significant economic and social impacts across industries and communities. Our Australian Defence Forces rely on critical civil infrastructure capabilities to service military bases and support national security and strategic posture, particularly in Central and Northern Australia. Our emergency services are dependent upon functional road networks to safely evacuate Australians during natural disaster events.

It is essential that our road corridors, both nationally and locally, not only meet current resilience requirements, but are maintained and built with a forward focus, to adapt to increasing climate pressures, and to accommodate our nation’s social and economic growth.

The inquiry evidence clearly demonstrated that the key issues impacting the resilience of our road networks are maintenance underinvestment and backlogs, asset condition data gaps, challenges accessing betterment funding, and a lack of cross-government collaboration and planning to support targeted investment and risk mitigation.

The impacts of severe weather events have brought the pre-existing sub-standard and dangerous state of the road network to the fore. Maintenance works across state and territory and local government areas have fallen behind, rendering road infrastructure increasingly susceptible to climate-related degradation.

The Committee heard that our local councils in particular are struggling to fund and maintain extensive road networks and support their communities in the face of repeated severe weather impacts on road infrastructure. As over 75 per cent of the road network is owned and managed by local governments, it is essential that our local councils have a voice in planning and investment for long-term resilience.

Equally concerning is the lack of available and consistent road asset data to inform maintenance regimes and targeted investment. The Committee heard that the condition of our national road assets is not well understood due to significant data gaps, and a lack of standardised data and sharing across all levels of government. It is critical that governments have access to high quality, consistent data to inform evidence-based strategic investment and preventive maintenance regimes for both state and locally owned road assets.

Resoundingly, we heard of the need to build in resilience following disaster events, to improve access and flexibility to betterment funding under the joint Australian and State and Territory Government Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA). Australia must have a focus on future risk mitigation.

It is imperative that we give precedence to addressing the state of Australia’s road network and maximise value for money across government investments. Australia needs a comprehensive national road infrastructure planning and investment framework that places national resilience at its centre. The Committee has made a number of recommendations to lift road resilience including greater collaboration across all levels of government, the scientific community, and industry, and a review of local government funding distributions.

The Committee has recommended cross-government development of road asset infrastructure resilience planning and investment frameworks to ensure a coordinated approach to investment priorities and mitigate against future climate impacts. A national set of road infrastructure resilience guidelines is also recommended to inform asset management and targeted and sustained investment in maintenance and capital works projects.

The Committee also called for the Australian Government to work with its state and territory counterparts, local governments and road agencies to address existing data gaps via comprehensive road network condition assessments and standardised road asset datasets. A review of our road asset conditions will also inform vital road safety investments.

Government engagement with the scientific community and industry is needed to develop national design and construction standards that reflect changing socio-economic and climatic environments and consider place-based requirements. The Committee also recommends strengthening government procurement requirements to incorporate resilient design and construction standards and educate and incentivise the use of innovative technologies and recyclable materials to support a circular economy.

The Committee notes the Australian Government’s commitment to doubling the Roads to Recovery Program funding over the next four years. This additional funding is an important step in assisting local governments to target road maintenance investments and upgrades to support future resilience.

Completely climate-proofing our entire road networks is not feasible. We must invest in our infrastructure assets through the lens of long-term resilience, climate change accountability, community connectivity and safety, and economic growth. We must shift our focus to infrastructure for resilience.

I wish to extend my sincere thanks to the many local councils, state and territory governments, organisations and individuals who took part in this inquiry via submissions, provision of evidence at public hearings, and during site inspections. I also extend my thanks to my parliamentary colleagues on the Committee for their constructive advice, collegiality, and dedication throughout this important inquiry process.

Mr Luke Gosling OAM, MP

Chair