Wednesday, 27 November 2024

Opposition performance

Josh BULL (Sunbury) (16:46): I am pleased have the opportunity this afternoon to make a contribution and grieve for the people of Victoria if those opposite ever have the opportunity to occupy the government benches because of not just the damage that will be inflicted but the jobs that will be axed, the major transport projects that will be shelved and of course the training and apprenticeship opportunities that would be lost.

We know on this side of the house that those opposite hope that Victorians have very short memories. Those opposite each and every day are hopeful that they forget the very dark, very quiet, very lazy period from 2010 to 2014 when not one major transport project was delivered. As a local member and someone who came into this place in November 2014 – and, Speaker, not making reflections on you of course, but you are somebody who may have been here a little longer than that – what I hoped for was a range of projects that were in delivery. We saw policy inertia and project inertia – nothing from those opposite. What we see time and time again week in, week out in this place is a show that comes in and wants to rip apart every major project that we have proposed and every major project that we have taken through a budget process to elections, but they would be half believable if they had actually delivered just one. This of course stands in stark contrast to our position and ensuring that Victorians know and understand that there is a strong pipeline of investment that goes to not just getting local communities to where they need to go safer and sooner but making sure that we have the infrastructure in place to provide the housing opportunities that are contained both in the housing statement and the many, many announcements made by the Premier just a couple of weeks ago when it comes to housing.

The key point here is knowing and understanding that this investment is not just for today but for generations ahead. About an hour ago I had the opportunity to sit down with some wonderful students from Albert Park Primary School on behalf of Minister Williams to discuss transport within that local community.

What is very clear is that more investment in transport is something that is heavily supported within communities by people right through all ages of their life. We know and understand that making these decisions now, making these investments, is incredibly important. What we have seen from those opposite, as I mentioned earlier, time and time again, week in and week out, is a systematic approach that is all about politicising our transport projects and not in any shape or form wanting to get them done. The commitment, the investment made by this team, is something that we have outlined in both our budgetary process and the announcements that we have made at many and varied elections.

Speaker, as the Speaker of the house you will of course be aware that not so long ago King Charles visited Canberra. We should not be fooled, because there is I believe another king that has been lurking around the place of late – self-proclaimed as it may be – and that is the member for Bulleen, who –

Brad Battin: The King of Bulleen – correct titles!

Josh BULL: I am getting there. Thanks for the interjection; that was helpful. Last sitting week he labelled himself the king of planning. It was a rather theatrical performance, as often we see from the member for Bulleen. He is not just the king of planning, member for Mordialloc, he is also the king of transport, and he made some comments last week on our train network. It was an interesting sort of contribution – a bit of mirror time, a bit of time on Instagram. It was quite interesting. He got himself to a train platform and did a bit of work.

But I go back to my point that it would be half believable to take lectures from those opposite if the investment, the policy work, the grunt work had been done. If we have seen some major projects delivered, that would have been something that we would be interested to see. However, let us jump in the time machine – in the DeLorean – and go back just a few years and remember when those opposite tried to block the Metro Tunnel. Now they are trying to mislead the public on a project that will deliver faster journeys and turn-up-and-go services for Victorians.

We have been clear for years that high-capacity trains using different train stations across different lines – perhaps we should have brought the whiteboard and sticky notes and done a small presentation for the king of transport. We know and understand that this is important work. Let us establish the facts. The network has different technologies, different frequencies, different train lines and different passenger capacities, and that is why different trains are needed. Best practice modern railway networks around the world run different dedicated trains, and Melbourne will become the first city in the country to roll out high-capacity signalling on the existing network. The Metro Tunnel will transform the way we move around our city, the way we move around our state. The high-capacity metro trains will run in the Metro Tunnel, and it will revolutionise the way we move around our city.

Just last week I had the opportunity to take some members of our community – our SES community, Fire Rescue Victoria, the CFA and some local schools – into the amazing Parkville station, one of five as part of that 97-kilometre direct connection between Sunbury and Cranbourne and Pakenham. To see the reaction, to see just how important this generational investment – the biggest since 1981 – is to our emergency services and the local school students that were there was incredibly inspiring. And what it means is that this is an opportunity for people to move around to our precincts safer and sooner. I spoke about Meredith earlier this week in the Parliament. Meredith has worked in the hospital precinct for decades. She has seen the construction in progress, and to have her there and to listen to her story about what it is going to mean shows why we make such significant investments.

I think, after nearly a decade of playing cheap and nasty politics with these projects, those opposite might just have realised that Victorians are a little bit wiser and a little bit smarter than those opposite give them credit for. They know and understand that major projects take time. They know and understand that major projects are an investment and, when you speak to anyone that is involved in engineering or anyone that is involved in something as complex and detailed as tunnelling, that investment and costs do change. Let us just look at Sydney Metro, a prime example. It opened just recently with investment from the government, and a community saw a project that took a long period of time and was a significant investment but will make a generational difference. The theatre, the politics, the light, the colour and the movement are but a distraction, because what we know on this side of the house, because we have been advocating for and talking about this project for a long time now, because major projects as big as Metro take a long time, is that these are incredibly important to the community. It builds upon the many, many others.

I have probably lingered on Metro a little longer than I had hoped, but I am just going to rattle off a couple of others. The West Gate Tunnel is set to open next year, a massive investment making sure that we are providing for additional capacity, and hopefully next week I will be back there again. There are the twin tunnels, a second river crossing, four new lanes on the West Gate – express lanes – a 2.5-kilometre elevated veloway above Footscray Road and 14 kilometres of new and upgraded walking and cycling paths. Making sure that that investment continues is very important to the west. We can move through our level crossing program – 110 by 2038, with 84 already gone – making sure that we are investing in communities to be safer and less congested, and we will see the Sunbury, Werribee and Frankston lines level crossing free, joining the Cranbourne, Pakenham and Lilydale lines. That of course provides for safer, less congested communities.

I have said this before: it is very easy to come into this place and bark and carry on about all sorts of things that those opposite do, but the people of our great state know and understand what leadership is. It is about making the hard decisions, it is about investing in people and it is about investing in communities, not just in the city, not just in peri-urban and growing communities but in the regions as well. There is no doubt, outstanding member for Geelong, that our great state has been through its challenges, whether it is the COVID pandemic or whether it is challenges that have been generated by international markets, those things that we have seen internationally when it comes to many of the commodities that we use to deliver these major projects. Our government’s view is that working with local communities to invest and making the hard decisions when and where we need to absolutely stacks up.

What we see time and time again from those opposite is a continued policy vacuum, playing the cheap road, playing the low road, not investing in communities and not investing in people. When it comes to people, I have not even talked about the new program delivery approach with roads, the major projects skills guarantee and the trainee and skills apprenticeships that are generated from these projects. What we know is that if you fail to invest in major projects and skills and training, then of course you are not giving people opportunities. Part of our role, alongside keeping people safe and making sure that we are investing each and every day, is investing in the future of the people in our state. I am incredibly proud that for about a decade we have made sure that with our programs and projects we have made this investment, while those opposite continue to do the things that they do best, and that is engage in fear campaigns, that is scare people and that is deliver some of the absolute rubbish, member for Geelong, that we saw today in a previous debate.

History is always the best judge, and despite losing three times now, those opposite fail to learn the lessons of history. What we saw today, particularly in that debate with the outstanding contribution from the outstanding member for Geelong, and what we see time and time again is a very sloppy, ordinary outfit. There are a couple of, let us say, fairly decent operators over that side of the house, and the people of Victoria will benefit from having what would be respectful, compassionate debate in this place, not the games, not the antics, not the lazy road that we see time and time again from those opposite.

However, our job is not to focus on them; it is to focus on us and on the people that elected us to come to this place and work within our constituency, within our local community, to get on and get things done. There is a major program of works. Next year we will see the culmination of a near decade-long project with the Metro Tunnel opening. We will see a more than five-year project, the West Gate Tunnel, opening. These are investments that stand the test of time. Those opposite can focus on all that they like, but our job is to make sure that people can get home safer and sooner, go about their business in a better way and get the skills and the life opportunities they deserve, and with those comments I will leave my contribution there.