Learner driver licence testing will progressively resume from Monday but the backlog of postponed tests in the south-west may take a significant amount of time to get through.
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Victoria's chief health officer Brett Sutton said on Thursday testing would start again with priority scheduling for the more than 100,000 licensing appointments, including 55,000 drive tests, that were postponed in March.
All For Learners Driving School owner Glenn Bubb said he was pleased the return of testing would lead to a sense of normality, but he wondered how quickly people would be able to sit for their licence.
"I've had quite a few students who had to postpone their tests and haven't heard about their re-testing yet," he said.
"I have one student going to Werribee on Monday to sit a test and it looks like they could've sat it here in about a week. I don't think this will be a fast process."
State government Roads Minister Jaala Pulford said all testing centres across the state would re-open and announced more than 200 new staff would be hired to help work through the postponed appointments as quickly as possible.
Member for South West Coast Roma Britnell called on the government to add some of these extra jobs to regional VicRoads testing centres to help work through the backlog.
"I've spoken to testing centres and the capacity in our region is there," she said.
"Portland is a testing centre one day a week but have said they can do more, same with Hamilton, Warrnambool and beyond."
The chief health officer outlined a range of measures to allow drive testing to commence safely for the workforce and public.
For more information, visit vicroads.vic.gov.au/coronavirus.
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