12:00 Rang Graham Watt, Member for Burwood, who seems to be championing these new barriers to tell him that they don't work and make things worse. I was told he would call back.

14:00 Have not heard from VicRoads as promised on Friday. Rang Barbara Forrester to remind her. She was apologetic and said theta she would follow up.

14:30 Just had a call from Michael Dezilwa at VicRoads in Burwood. The major points of the conversation were

• Our area of East Malvern did not warrant upgrading of the noise walls and was only chosen to test the new barriers because of the access available to complete the works, for testing and the impact is not great because of the parkland. There are other areas which warrant proper barriers more than us, therefore we were used as the guinea pigs. There is some sort of logic there but blowed if I can find it.
• VicRoads are yet to complete their final testing but he intimated it will be in the next week or two. We will be notified when they have the final results.
• As part of their testing I asked for two things 1) that the installation be checked by the manufacturer of the new barriers to ensure the work was done properly, and 2) that they go along the length of the barrier and elimininate any gaps in the old barrier. He agreed to 1 and was non-committal on 2. He gave the impression that there may be problems with the old barrier because of its age, which they wouldn't fix.
• The upshot is that if as a result of their testing they find that there was no change in noise levels, then things stay as they are. If they find that there has been an increase then they could remove the new barriers and just leave the old ones (in a worse condition than they were originally, I would think)
• He said that experts agree that vegitation would make little difference to the noise levels and most that was removed was on the freeway side.
• He apologised for the large gaps left while work was in progress resulting in dogs getting onto the freeway side. This should not have happened.
• A response to our petition has been drafted and is currently being checked. Everyone who signed the letter will be sent a copy but I got the impression it won't really say anything positive for us.

The overall impression I got from the conversation is that we should not hope for any real improvement and that we should be grateful we were thrown these crumbs, which ended up being a dirty great cowpat. I think my next step is to contact our local state member, Michael O'Brien, and invite him to hear the noise for himself and to complain about what I consider to be the utter contempt that VicRoads has shown for the residents.