THE Federal Coalition announced a $5 million election pledge to fund a Mildura bypass feasibility study if a Dutton-Littleproud Government is elected on Saturday.
The study would seek to determine what the best route to bypass Mildura would be, and would focus on broader road freight and rail configurations.
Member for Mallee, Anne Webster, said the study would set the groundwork for creating a road freight route option that would get trucks out of both Deakin and Benetook Avenues.
“We know that we need to have a serious bypass discussion and we need to have a serious bypass plan,” she said.
Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development, Bridget McKenzie was also at the event and said the average freight journey from Adelaide to Sydney takes 15 hours.
“We know by bypassing Mildura, it’ll save our truckies and that freight task an hour,” she said.
“That means less fuel in the tank, more time at home for the truckies, goods arriving sooner, and less emissions from our trucking industry,” Ms McKenzie said.
“It is good all round to get this bypass built, and that’s why the Coalition Government will take the first steps to get it done.”
A brief look at the history of the issue
The increasing passage of freight through the central business district of Mildura has been a persistent issue for several decades.
Plans to divert heavy vehicles off Deakin Avenue and onto a “Benetook Bypass” were first flagged in 1991.
Deakin Avenue presents a number of pedestrian-dense obstacles for trucks, including three school zones, an ambulance station, supermarkets, a shopping centre, fast food businesses and numerous other businesses and traffic light crossings.
The 2005 Mildura Transport Plan for Long Term Regional Development report suggested Benetook Avenue was not the optimum long-term solution as an alternative route for Deakin Avenue.
It instead suggested the Sturt Highway be rerouted via Meridian Road, with a new bridge proposed over the Murray River at Monak.
Despite this, several intersection upgrades were undertaken along the Benetook Avenue route by State and Federal Governments with the intent of creating a bypass.
They included roundabout upgrades at Benetook Avenue and Seventeenth Street and Benetook Avenue and Fourteenth Street in 2008, Benetook Avenue and Sixteenth Street in 2014, and Deakin Avenue and Seventeenth Street in 2019, as well as other road realignments approaching George Chaffey Bridge.
The Benetook route is not mandatory for the heavy vehicle industry, and many truck drivers opt to use Deakin Avenue instead due its straight route, and lack of roundabouts.
The Monak bridge remains a core part of Mildura Rural City Council’s freight transport strategy, as it was listed as a key enabler in its draft Integrated Transport and Land Use Strategy document from 2023, and remained in the final version of the strategy, adopted last week.
The document also called from the Department of Transport to shift National Highway classification from Deakin Avenue between Fifteenth Street and Seventh Street to the Mildura freight bypass route along Benetook Avenue.
This year, one of MRCC’s stated advocacy priorities for the Federal election was the development of a business case to justify the need for a second bridge for the Mildura region, at Monak.
They said it was projected to take about 1000 trucks out of the CBD each day, while shaving an hour from heavy freight travel times, saving trucking companies an estimated $65 million per year.
Council suggested they would need $200,000 for the study, and the study would cost a total of $300,000, taking 36 months to deliver.
Why a study, and why the $5m cost?
Dr Webster said there were issues with the existing Benetook bypass, and a fully fledged bypass solution needed to be explored in a study, in collaboration with multiple councils, state governments, the Commonwealth and the freight industry.
She said it went beyond the scope of looking at the Monak bridge in isolation.
“We’re not talking about a 50-page piece of work here, this is going to take time and it’s needs to be done properly to set Mildura and this region up for the future,” Dr Webster said.
Ms McKenzie said $5 million was necessary to facilitate research and consultation to determine whether the Monak Bridge solution, or another alternative, would provide the best result for the freight industry and Mildura residents more broadly.
“We want to make sure we truncate that by getting a really serious body of work done with this $5 million,” she said.
“It means talking to both councils on both sides of the river, talking to the local trucking industry but also the national trucking industry and road users more broadly, because we don’t want to create unintended consequences.
“Obviously in anything that’s done around these matters in modern Australia we need to take in environmental and cultural concerns as well.”
She said ideally the study – whose funding is dependent on the Coalition election result – would ideally be completed before the 2028 Federal election, so its recommendations could be pursued further.
Other advocacy
Meantime, a motion to back the recommendations concerning the Benetook bypass route and Monak bridge as per MRCC’s Integrated Transport and Land Use Strategy 2025 will be brought before Wentworth Shire in an upcoming meeting this year.
It will be introduced with the intent to advocate to relevant state and federal ministers and departments in concert with MRCC.
Previous mentions of bypasses and second bridge crossings have featured in past Wentworth and Mildura council discussion as well as in state political circles on both sides of the aisle, to differing degrees.
A truck bypass of Mildura was included in the Baillieu Government’s 2012 Priority Infrastructure submission to Infrastructure Australia.
Last year, the Mildura Labor branch passed two motions at the Victorian Labor conference, to build a new Murray River crossing at Monak to divert rail and road freight, and to support a Benetook Avenue truck bypass to reroute heavy vehicles away from the CBD.
These motions became party of the Labor Party platform, but the parliamentary party is not bound to follow through on the motions.
Dr Webster said she’d hoped a Dutton-Coalition Government was elected on Saturday, so that the $5 million was guaranteed.
“The very first step is to have this major piece of work done,” she said.
“It is not a cheap process, but it is the first step.
“They’re not band-aid solutions, these are looking for strategic and sustainable outcomes for the region.”
The Federal Labor Party was asked if they would match the $5 million funding commitment for a bypass scoping study, a spokesperson did not reply by deadline.
