Mansfield ignored again in state budget

Published on 23 May 2025

Mansfield Shire has once again been ignored with the state government budget being handed down this week.

Mayor Cr Steve Rabie said it was a shame that the regions had been ignored overall.

“This is an extremely metro-centric budget,” said Cr Rabie.

“Mansfield Shire has been completely ignored in this budget, along with most of our regional neighbours.

“The biggest spend in this state budget is the Melbourne Airport Rail at $4.1bn.

“Let’s be honest here. We are all paying for the blowout of the Melbourne Metro Tunnel, which has caused this budget crisis. I would have expected that with the regions doing it tough, and with regional communities being ripped off by the unfair ESVF tax, that we would have seen something – anything – as a token of support in this budget.

“If you live in the city, you’ll get cost of living help with free public transport for kids and weekend transport for seniors. If you live in Mansfield, you barely even have any public transport.

“That’s $318m over four years that we won’t be seeing here, unless we’ve made our way to Melbourne on the bus. The budget is silent on regional public transport.

“If we look instead at our roads, then, it doesn’t seem that there is any extra funding for roundabouts. We have been advocating specifically for roundabout funding to make intersections safer.

“The state government is mandating housing targets, saying that we must plan for more homes. This will increase the population and put pressure on our road network. When all the extra people are on our roads, how will they safely drive on our roads?

“Rural Councils Victoria have been advocating for the continuation of funding for country roads and bridges. This didn’t come through either. We are pleased that the Department of Transport and Planning will have additional funding in this budget to fix potholes on state-owned roads. This is critical as the worst of our roads are actually state roads and we have been advocating strongly for their repair. But the road network is expensive to maintain and our local roads need to be funded too.

“If the state government respected regional voters, it would be evident in this budget.

“The state government needs to re-think the way it uses the new ESVF tax to balance the budget it needs for Melbourne’s tunnel,” said Cr Rabie.

ENDS