Wednesday, 19 February 2025

Suburban Rail Loop

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (12:16): (808) My question is to the Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop. Minister, the Auditor-General’s major projects performance report tabled earlier today has revealed that the Suburban Rail Loop East early works package is currently going through a pricing reset with the SRL East’s contractor to factor in items that were unknown or uncertain at the time the contract was awarded. These include unknown ground conditions, hazards and contamination at some sites. Will you release a list of which sites are contaminated?

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (12:17): If only the grasshopper could teach the sensei a little bit about the way in which questions on major projects can be asked. Again, you have not had to deliver any major projects. You have never actually committed to delivering any major projects, and to that end and for that reason, you would not understand the way in which early works are undertaken.

David Davis: On a point of order, President, the minister knows her task at question time is to answer questions, not to attack the opposition.

The PRESIDENT: I uphold the point of order. The minister is to answer the question.

Harriet SHING: ‘Sensei’ actually means master, Mr Davis, so I am sorry if you view that as an insult, and I do indeed withdraw and commit not to refer to you as such ever again. Now, what I would say, when we are looking at TEI, is that when you do the early works for a project that involves tunnelling underground it is really normal to have a high degree of variability in those early works processes. That is because you need to be able to understand what it is that you are uncovering, and this is also why we do this work up front. When we talk to the $300 million that has been added to the SRL East envelope, this is also about making sure that it remains in budget.

As I just said in my ministers statement, we are continuing with the work to have tunnel-boring machines in the ground next year –

A member interjected.

Harriet SHING: You may well rail against that – excuse the pun – but it has to happen, and residents and communities know that it will mean important and beneficial changes for Victorians, for your kids, for your grandkids and for a better –

Evan Mulholland: On a point of order, President, I asked the minister if she will release a list or make public the contaminated sites along the early works of SRL East, and she has not come close to that. I ask that you bring the minister back to the question.

The PRESIDENT: I will bring the minister back to the question.

Harriet SHING: Thank you very much. What I would say to you, Mr Mulholland, is that for avoidance of any doubt – and you did refer to the Auditor-General’s report today – tunnel-boring machines will be in the ground next year. Trains will be running on this 26-kilometre dual tunnel project in 2035, unless of course you are saying that you are going to rip up this contract and these processes.

SRL East infrastructure received planning approvals in September 2022. In the course of that work, for the purpose of the environment effects statement, overall many impacts will be avoided by putting the rail underground, and the environmental effects of SRL East have been identified and carefully considered throughout the environment effects statement work. There are a range of enhanced measures and outcomes for residents and traders during the project’s construction and operation – and you will know if you go to any of those six sites what those look like – and we have also adopted changes and conditions required to ensure the project’s environmental effects are appropriately managed. Mr Mulholland, we need to be able to do these early works to understand what risks look like, and this is the same conversation we had around a risk register. You take a due diligence process to understand what risk is in order to mitigate, manage and wherever possible reduce to zero the risks associated with this work. It will mean that as those further stages of the project across the entire loop continue, we do have the best processes in hand to be able to manage it.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (12:20): I would note that there have been problems that have been exposed, obviously, since the environment effects statement, and this is evidence of that. I ask the minister: how will the minister and the SRLA deal with these contaminated sites?

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (12:21): Thank you, Mr Mulholland, for perhaps giving me a direction in your supplementary question that enables me to go to what it means to develop and to deliver infrastructure across industrial land. When we do that, we need to make sure that we have a good understanding of the profile and condition of industrial land, which is not known or completely understood before such time as that early work gets underway. The work for early works processes – and there is a hint in the title – is to be able to understand what early work involvement and impact looks like. This is where, again, we will engage very, very carefully across communities adjacent to those industrial and formerly industrial sites and we will notify communities as part of normal engagement processes. SRLA is on the ground every single day making sure that people have accurate information, as much as anything to counter the mythology that you peddle at every opportunity.