Western Australia’s Auditor General has tabled the Maintaining Regional Local Roads report in Parliament which highlighted a number of problematic issues including:
- The condition of Western Australia’s Local Government (LG) road network is largely unknown because it is neither measured nor consistently reported.
- This lack of data undermines maintenance planning, prevents accurate assessment of maintenance effectiveness, and obscures the true scale and cost of the maintenance backlog.
- The inconsistency of asset management across LGs increases the risk of poor prioritisation, reactive maintenance, and weak justification for funding.
- Local roads differ greatly in type, age, use, and condition, facing growing pressures from heavier traffic, especially heavy haulage.
- While all audited LGs are maintaining roads, many regional councils lack the technical and financial capacity to adopt a structured, risk-based approach.
- Recruitment challenges, contractor shortages, and regulatory burdens further constrain LGs in their ability to maintain regional roads.
- Funding mechanisms are outdated and unresponsive to these disparities. The Local Government Agreement, which allocates 80% of motor vehicle licensing fees to state roads and 20% to local roads, has remained unchanged since 1990 and lacks transparent justification.
- Similarly, the asset preservation model for Financial Assistance Grants has not been reviewed since 1990 and fails to consider essential variables such as road condition or LG revenue capacity. Consequently, funding may not align with actual needs.
- Reform is required to align funding with local conditions and capacity, integrate reliable condition data into planning, and support regional LGs in adopting proactive, cost-effective maintenance strategies.
Read the full report on the Auditor General’s website here
