Pothole Compensation

Six years ago, I raised a Matter of Public Importance in the Assembly, urging the Labor-Greens government to get on top of road maintenance. For years, the government had failed to meet its own resealing targets, creating a huge backlog. I warned then that poor road maintenance would prove costly in the future.

That future has arrived. Although the ACT Government continues to blame ‘unprecedented rainfall’ for the many potholes now plaguing our roads, experts agree that properly maintained roads do not just deteriorate in the rain.

Many cars have been damaged by potholes. I spoke in October about improving the process of making a claim for compensation from the ACT Government. The process is now easier, but it still takes too long for claims to be settled: 59 per cent remain unsettled after 30 working days, and 22 per cent take more than 60 working days.

In the Assembly today, I spoke in support of a Liberal motion calling on the government to settle all claims within 30 working days, with interest accruing on payouts after that point. It is the least that ACT Labor and the Greens can do after years of neglecting our essential road network.

Click on the arrow button to read my speech.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I thank Ms Lawder for this motion. I spoke on the same subject in October and raised concerns about how difficult it was to make an online claim for compensation for pothole damage. Instructions were hard to find, and the process was so convoluted that it appeared designed to discourage anyone successfully completing it. I certainly heard from constituents who tried to make a claim and then just gave up in frustration.

There is now an online form that is easier to find and easier to complete, but the referral page for this form is still discouraging. Those who make a claim are warned that, whilst the ACT Government ‘will endeavour to contact [them] within 60 working days’, ‘a higher volume of claims submissions than normal’ means that people should expect ‘delays’.

The high volume of claims submissions stems, of course, from the very high volume of car-destroying potholes plaguing the territory, many of which have opened up in roads and even in public car parks across my electorate of Ginninderra. Every week I hear from local residents frustrated by how long it takes for dangerous potholes to be repaired and disgusted at how quickly they fail again.

The government’s website blames these potholes exclusively on the weather, twice stating that the road network has been damaged by ‘two years of unprecedented rainfall’. This is not the whole truth, however – as noted by road maintenance experts.

Six years ago, I brought before this Assembly a matter of public importance urging better road maintenance. At that time, I cited research by Sally Burningham and Natalya Stankevich demonstrating that a regular maintenance schedule can prevent ‘significant deterioration’ of road surfaces. I also noted that years of neglect by ACT Labor and the Greens had resulted in a very large backlog of roads that had not been resurfaced in line with government targets. I then warned those opposite what would happen if the ACT Government did not improve road care, noting that, according to Burningham and Stankevich, ‘the appearance of potholes is one sign that road maintenance has not been performed on schedule’.

In other words, heavy rain – including ‘unprecedented rainfall’ – does not always cause potholes in roads that have been adequately sealed; rain merely exposes the subsurface flaws present in poorly maintained roads. This point was confirmed by Michael Caltabiano, chief executive of the Australia Road Research Board, in a Canberra Times article last year. Asked whether Canberra’s mushrooming pothole problem can be blamed solely on the weather, his answer was no. I quote from the article: ‘It is also about neglect during the dry weather. Not spending then was a false economy, according to Mr Caltabiano. “From my observation, the ACT road network is in a poor condition,” he said … “the road system is deteriorating, and ordinary drivers are seeing that”’.[1]

This false economy is something else that I warned about in my speech six years ago. As I said then, investing in regular road maintenance in the present is cheaper than endlessly patching and repairing neglected roads in future. Naturally, my warning was ignored by those opposite, who are deaf to almost anything said by the Liberal opposition.

Today, years of persistent Labor and Greens neglect of our road network has proved to be expensive not just to government but to everyday drivers, with thousands of Canberrans forced to fork out for repairs to tyres, wheels, and sometimes other car systems. Nearly 200 residents undertook the challenging task of filing a claim for compensation from the ACT Government in the first ten months of last year. Fifty-nine per cent of those claims remained unsettled after 30 working days, and 22 per cent were still unsettled after 60 working days.

This motion calls on the government to process all claims within 30 working days, with interest accruing on payouts after that point. This seems to be the least this government can do for those whose vehicles have been damaged by the territory’s ‘deteriorating’ roads. I commend this motion to the Assembly. Thank you.

[1] ‘What causes potholes on Canberra roads and why are they so hard to get rid of?’, Canberra Times, 17 Sep. 2022.