Tuesday, 2 August 2022

Western Rail Plan

Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (19:58): (2027) The good punters of Brimbank will need some way to get to their new pool, and I would put forward to the house the idea that it would be jolly nice if they could get there on public transport. Mr Finn and I have not necessarily been colluding here; however, I am going to carry on with his theme. For so many years the people of Melbourne’s west have been forgotten, have been overlooked, and I do agree, quite frankly, with the proposition Mr Finn has put forward that, of course, when you look at the margins in so many seats in the west, they are pretty big margins for the ALP. I spent the day a week and a half ago with the mayors of both Brimbank and Melton councils and also the senior leaderships of those councils talking about the Western Rail Plan. So my adjournment matter tonight is actually for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and the action that I seek from her is for her to provide a time line of the plan’s development.

I had the great privilege and pleasure of spending an evening with the Deputy Premier last week. She and I addressed a transport forum. I want to thank the Metropolitan Transport Forum for putting this on at the town hall. The Lord Mayor officiated. Together we were asked so many questions about our plans for Melbourne’s west, and the folks in that room, many of whom came from Melbourne’s west, were not necessarily best pleased with the responses from the Deputy Premier about how highly she regards the Western Rail Plan. Questioner after questioner agreed with what was put to me by the mayors of Brimbank and Melton, which was that it is all very well for the government to say that the Western Rail Plan is a good thing, but when is it going to happen? Where is the funding? Where is the plan from the government to actually get this going?

There are so many elements of the Western Rail Plan that are incredibly meritorious in my view. There is the electrification of the rail lines out to Melton and to Wyndham Vale. There is Geelong fast rail and the airport rail link. Only the airport rail link has seen any progress whatsoever, and even then that progress has been minimal. Government is about priorities, and this government’s priority is to forge ahead with a rail line from Cheltenham to Box Hill at an astronomical cost of $34.5 billion. It just so happens to run through five marginal seats, but folks in growth corridors, folks in the outer suburbs, folks who cannot afford to live in the leafy inner east and the inner south-east have been forgotten for so long and have so few transport options. Well, this election may be the election when the very good folks of Brimbank and Melton decide to tell the government that it is high time that they were remembered and it is high time that they were given access to the basic services that people Mr Leane and I represent have access to every day.