Victorian Labor proposes using prisoners for road maintenance if re-elected

Prisoners in Victorian jails will be put to work on road maintenance as part of Labor's plan to fix the state's crumbling highways, if re-elected.

A day after increasing the road maintenance budget by $352 million to fix 500,000 potholes by the end of January, Labor has announced more details about its plan to address the state of Victoria's roads.

Premier Ben Carroll said if Labor won the November election, it would work with Corrections Victoria to develop a pilot program to put supervised, minimum-security prisoners to work performing roadside maintenance.

The plan would include having inmates take over basic duties such as mowing lawns, controlling weeds, removing graffiti and picking up rubbish.

Premier Ben Carroll, who served as roads minister between 2020 and 2022, said it would free up skilled roadside maintenance crews to concentrate on fixing potholes.

Low-security inmates are already involved in day-release programs doing gardening, weeding and rubbish collection in some parks.

Mr Carroll said fixing the state's roads should be part of the outdoor manual labour program.

The government said the work performed by the inmates would not replace paid jobs but would "supplement the workforce where there are skill and capacity shortages".

Mr Carroll also said the government would bring road maintenance programs "back in-house", meaning less reliance on contracted companies to do the physical labour.

Labor also plans to set up a dedicated website where drivers can take a photo of a pothole in their local area, request it be repaired and monitor progress of the job.

"My new direction is all about taking responsibility for your safety and being transparent with your services," Mr Carroll said.

Yesterday, Mr Carroll conceded Victoria's road conditions were not good enough.

Last month, the state opposition pledged to invest $5 billion to repair and rebuild the state's roads, and patch 1 million potholes if it wins in November.

Shadow Roads Minister Danny O'Brien said the move to use prisoners in road maintenance was "a distraction".

"That's no surprise, because the government's handling of road maintenance has been absolutely criminal," he said.

"We do already have prisoners involved in maintenance of public assets.

"This is desperate spin by a government on the eve of an election that knows it's got a problem trying to hoodwink Victorians into thinking they're actually doing something about it."