Tuesday, 30 August 2022

V/Line services

Ms BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (19:21): (6514) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Public Transport, and the action I seek is for the government to ensure all V/Line services that run between Warrnambool and Melbourne are accessible to people with disabilities. On Monday a constituent of mine, Merrilyn Reid, was left stranded in Warrnambool due to a failure by V/Line to ensure there was appropriate wheelchair access to its service to Melbourne. Ms Reid booked on Saturday to travel on Monday morning’s service to Melbourne but was told buses would replace trains for the journey.

Over the past couple of years buses have regularly been needed to replace trains for either sections of the service or the entire journey due to disruptions on the train line. However, not all V/Line coach services have a lift or allocated space for travellers with mobility aids, such as scooters or wheelchairs. When this happens taxis are used to transport affected travellers. On Monday no taxi was available to take Mrs Reid from Warrnambool to Geelong, where she would have been able to access a train to Melbourne. For some inexplicable reason V/Line did not organise a taxi on Saturday when Ms Reid booked to travel, despite surely knowing the coach service did not have the appropriate lifts in place.

This is not a one-off occurrence and is inexcusable. How can we have a situation in this day and age where people with disabilities are still being discriminated against? It is shameful. It is bad enough that this government needs to rely on taxis to transport people to Melbourne from Warrnambool at great expense, which makes them feel that they are being singled out for having a disability because our train or coach services do not have proper infrastructure in place to support those with disabilities, but for V/Line not even to ensure a taxi was available is appalling.

In 2017 South-West Coast was promised new VLocity trains to replace the current fleet as part of an upgrade to the Warrnambool line. This would allow for a fifth daily rail service between Warrnambool and Melbourne. Fast-forward to 2022, and we are still waiting. That is despite the fact that the Premier promised the first VLocity trains would be running within 12 to 18 months of that announcement in 2017. We have also now learned that the new VLocity trains will have less seats and no catering service and will not run any faster than the current fleet. For a long-haul service like the one from Warrnambool to Melbourne one would expect a catering service similar to what is currently offered. You can rest assured people from metropolitan Melbourne would not get such shoddy treatment from this government. Like usual, we suffer due to this city-centric government that just does not care about regional Victoria. We deserve the best rail service possible, one that delivers for everyone. That is why I implore the minister to ensure at the very least that V/Line offers disability access for all its services between Warrnambool and Melbourne.