Former MotoGP world champion slams 'atrocious' state of Victoria's roads

All right, on the line now is Wayne Gardner. He's Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix winner and former MotoGP world champion. Wayne, thanks for coming on the program.

My pleasure.

Now, you've lived overseas in, in recent years, but, uh, when you come back to Victoria and when you come back to Australia, how would you describe the, the state of our roads?

Well, I mean, I've just arrived back from, uh, from Europe. I, I live over there but, um, I have seen some atrocious roads. Uh, I'm not, uh, pinpointing any exactly, but I have seen, you know, roads with potholes everywhere and, uh, it's dangerous. It's dangerous to drivers of vehicles, um, whether it's small vehicles or big vehicles, and it's, uh, extremely dangerous for motorcycles. So ... And as I've just heard then, uh, in the voiceovers that, uh, yeah, it's, uh, a gentleman se- of 70s or odd has, um, had an accident and, um, been, been killed unfortunately. So sad. Sad to hear that the state, Victoria state, is leaving them in these conditions.

Mm. And I guess n- b- riding bikes all your life and being an integral part of, of the community, I think it's a real shame that people have this as a hobby or a lifestyle, and they no longer feel, because of the state of our roads and the condition of our roads, that they, they, they don't feel safe anymore to do something that they love, and I think that's a real shame.

Oh, absolutely. I mean it, but, but not only a shame, I mean, it, it's, it's, it's disappointing that the government lets the roads, um, fall into, you know, disrepair and, um, and now things, accidents happen and, and a gentleman's been, um, killed riding his motorcycle and obviously the wheel's gone into the hole. I don't know the details-

Mm

... and, uh, it's thrown him off the bike. Um, you know, if it was a racetrack, you could never, uh... You wouldn't ride and you wouldn't race in those sort of conditions, but unfortunately this is the general roads and, um, but it's up to the state, the state government to, um, fix these issues. I mean, I did work for, uh, for the federal government, um, for a period of three years on road safety under Mr. Albanese's, uh, uh, leadership and, um, uh, of transport and, um, you know, we were, we as a panel sat behind him and watched him listening. We, we actually had to drill into a lot of it and try to understand this better and, but, um, it, it-

What did you learn out of that experience?

Well, I just learnt that it takes a long time [laughs]

Mm

... to, for decisions to be made in a government and it's very frustrating, may I say. I mean, I enjoyed it. It was a great learning curve. Uh, and I was one of about, uh, 12 council members, but, um, I learnt that, you know, great ideas are, uh ... We, we thrashed out great ideas, but to get it implemented takes years and years and years, and it's sort of really frustrating when there's a real problem out on the roads, for example, like these potholes. So it's, uh, it, it, it needs to be followed up and it needs to be repaired and, um, we've, we've got people's lives at stake here, so it's extremely disappointing and I think people should be doing something about it.

So what is your message to our state