In short:
Almost half of Victoria's state-managed roads are in very poor condition, the auditor-general has found.
It says more than $3 billion a year is needed to maintain the state's roads.
What's next?
Roads Minister Paul Hamer has accepted that Victoria's roads are not good enough and has promised to deal with it.
A new report from Victoria's auditor-general has found almost half of Victoria's road network in poor condition and is crumbling faster than the government can repair it.
The report, tabled in parliament this morning, examined more than 23,000 kilometres of state roads and found that about 48 per cent of the network was in poor or very poor condition in 2024 compared to 39 per cent in 2021.
Newly-appointed Roads Minister Paul Hamer said the government accepted that the roads were not good enough, promising the government would fix the way it deals with roads if re-elected.
"I didn't need a report to tell me the condition of our roads in Victoria need to be improved,"Mr Hamer said.
Late last month the government announced an extra $352 million of funding to double the number of potholes fixed this year.
"That includes bringing road maintenance back in-house," he said.
"It meets higher standards, it means more accountability, it means more transparency, and it means more local delivery and local expertise."
This figure is in addition to the $1.04 billion allocated to road asset management in this year's budget, bringing the total funding to $1.39 billion.
The report found that the government's current funding commitment falls short of completing the maintenance required to fix the state's roads properly.
According to the auditor-general the funding shortfall led to a focus "more on reactive and safety-critical repairs rather than preventative works".
The Department of Transport and Planning's 2026–27 road maintenance business case, which informs the state budget process, estimated it would cost more than $3 billion per year to maintain road pavement condition at existing levels, while replacing aging assets.
Mr Hamer would not be drawn on whether he would ask Premier Ben Carroll to boost funding.
"We've had record investment over the last few years in each of those financial years, but we need to do more. We are not shying away from that," he said.
Regional communities hit hardest
State roads account for about 15 per cent of the Victorian road network by length, but carry most of Victoria's traffic.
Around 82 per cent of state roads are in regional Victoria.
The report found increasing road use and traffic is adding to the pressure on the network, with growth expected to continue.
The Loddon Mallee region recorded the highest proportion of roads as being in poor or very poor condition, with 69.1 per cent of the region's state roads receiving the rating.
Coalition pledge to tackle roads
Victorian opposition roads spokesperson and Nationals leader Danny O'Brien said the findings were damning.
"This is an indictment on the Labor government's inability to look after our roads, to maintain them properly," he said.
Mr O'Brien said the Coalition's promise to reinstate the $288 million Country Roads and Bridges Program if it wins government in November would help address the issue.
The Coalition has also promised $5 billion to fix the state's potholes.
It also plans to spend $288 million over four years by providing funds to rural and regional councils to spend on road repairs.
"I believe if we actually do the preventative maintenance, we get on top of it after a couple of years, that will require less money in the longer run," Mr O'Brien said.
The report also highlighted that Victoria has a large and growing road maintenance backlog where the network is deteriorating faster than the pace of repairs.
Based on defect job records, which includes potholes or hazards such as structural failure, the gap between the number of defects identified and the number of defects rectified more than doubled between January 2025 and June 2026.
