Tuesday, 4 February 2025

Metro Tunnel

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (18:45): (1367) My adjournment is to the Minister for Transport Infrastructure in the other place. I seek the action of the minister to explain the cutting of promised upgrades to the Craigieburn line and the Upfield line from the Metro Tunnel project. Originally estimated at $11 billion, the Metro Tunnel has now ballooned to about $15.5 billion, a clear example of Labor’s financial mismanagement and inability to manage major projects. Initially slated for completion this year, recent reports reveal the project is facing up to a 12-month delay, and I very much doubt the government’s ability to meet its deadlines to deliver the promised operational trains by the end of 2025. But we know that when you cannot manage money, somebody has to pay for that, and it is Victorians in the northern suburbs that are paying the price. I remember when the government was boasting about the benefits of the Metro Tunnel to people in the northern suburbs, like on the Craigieburn line where you have a frequency of about one train every 20 minutes off-peak on weekdays and up to 40 minutes on weekends. It actually has greater usage than the Frankston line but has about double the wait times in terms of frequency. The Metro Tunnel was meant to deliver at Essendon a turn back and platform extension, which would increase frequency for the good people on the Craigieburn line. For the people on the Upfield line, which has the worst frequency of any line in the state, it was meant to deliver a much-needed turn back at Gowrie to address a single-track bottleneck on the Upfield line.

I seek the action of the minister to explain why the northern suburbs are missing out on the supposed promised benefits of the Metro Tunnel. Where is the member for Pascoe Vale, Mr Cianflone? Is he still boasting about the benefits of Metro Tunnel to his community, because the government is not delivering. Where is the member for the neglectorate of Greenvale boasting about the benefits to the Craigieburn line, because there are none? Where is the member for Essendon Danny Pearson boasting about benefits for the Craigieburn line? There are none. There is absolutely no benefit now to the good people on the Upfield line and the Craigieburn line, because this government cannot manage money. They have blown the budget on the Metro Tunnel and now it is people in my electorate, people in the northern suburbs, suffering with cancelled trains and with unreliable trains on the Craigieburn and Upfield line, who are paying the price as a result of this government’s mismanagement of major projects.