Wednesday, 20 March 2024

Rowville rail line

Kim WELLS (Rowville) (09:53): Melbourne needs a rail link to Rowville, not a train going from nowhere to nowhere. After a request from the Victorian Liberals the Parliamentary Budget Office conducted an investigation into the real costings related to the Labor government’s Suburban Rail Loop. What they found has absolutely staggered me: $216.7 billion will be needed to fund the SRL. For those of us that live out in the Rowville electorate, we are constantly pained by every mention of the ongoing Suburban Rail Loop when we cannot even get into the CBD on public transport. For a lot of people this number is pretty hard to comprehend, and it is all going onto a credit card.

A better idea would be to put some of the SRL funding into delivering the long-awaited Rowville rail. At the last federal election, when the funding for Rowville rail was allocated under Alan Tudge, MP for Aston, and the federal Liberals, $475 million was secured to build an extension from Caulfield to Monash University that would have extended out to Rowville. All that was needed was for the state Labor government to match that funding. Yet as soon as Albanese and his government were elected we saw the Rowville rail funding cut in their first budget without any justification. However, I bet if Rowville rail was delivered, that train would be packed with residents going in and out of the city day and night. I will continue to fight to have a Rowville rail link secured for the electorate of Rowville.