Benambra electorate
Bill TILLEY (Benambra) (14:39): (188) My constituency question is to the Minister for Public Transport, and the action I seek is for the minister to provide information and do what matters to address the overcrowding on trains to and from Wodonga – other than last-minute buses. This is, simply put, a poor imitation of a joke, where tickets are sold with no appreciation of whether the train is already full and people are forced to stand or sit on the carriage floor, mostly, like some Third World service, for the up to 4-hour trip. How is this even safe? That only 96 of the 328 seats can be booked online beggars belief. Last Saturday at 6:55 am a train from the border was, after just four stops, close to full as it pulled into Wangaratta. More people boarded, most forced to stand. You then had to get buses put on at the next stop for the surplus passengers to get them to Melbourne. Cheap train fares were a great idea – in fact it was the coalition’s idea – but surely it is obvious that remedies need to be made.