Wednesday, 19 February 2025

Local Jobs First

Report 2022–23

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:34): I rise to speak on theLocal Jobs First report 2022–23. The Andrews and Allan Labor governments have taken Australia’s longest standing industry participation policy and propelled it forward, with a transformational focus on local content requirements for more than 300 strategic projects now since 2014. This does not just mean ensuring that local businesses and local workers benefit from local content requirements for $26 billion worth of projects in 2022–23 alone. It also means ensuring that Victorian businesses and Victorian workers have the skills, capacity and knowledge to deliver projects locally well into the future. This is a government that is committed to developing and providing opportunities for local businesses that employ skilled workers right across this state, creating scale and capacity for private ventures across various industries, powering the Victorian economy well into the future. Because of this, we on this side of the chamber believe that Victorian workers and Victorian businesses are the best placed to drive that future economic growth. We have the confidence that we have the skills and the ability to deliver what our state needs within Victoria, built by the hard work and skill of business owners, apprentices and trainees.

We have seen more than 340 new Victorian-built trains and trams since 2015 alone. We have seen the X’Trapolis 2.0, with the first of those sets rolling off the assembly line now in Ballarat. That will be the core trunk of several lines of the network, including for the Frankston line in my region and other lines right across. I believe the Craigieburn and Upfield lines will also benefit from those new X’Trapolis 2.0 trains as they are rolled out, and indeed they will be well placed to take advantage of the capacity benefits brought about by the opening of the Metro Tunnel later this year. I note, talking about the Metro Tunnel, we have got the new HCMTs as well, which are being maintained and serviced not far from my electorate at the terrific depot at Pakenham East, just near the new East Pakenham station that has also been built. The 70-odd high-capacity metro trains which have been delivered will complement the existing X’Trapolis trains, the X’Trapolis 2.0 – those Ballarat-made new trains that we are bringing in – as well as the Siemens and other Comeng trains that we still have running as the backbone of our rail fleet.

As we are delivering these trains, it is very, very good to see that investment going into the Ballarat region. On top of that we are seeing the new G-class trams, which will soon be coming into service, again with the new depot in Maidstone in the western suburbs, which will support the delivery of the rollout of the new G-class trams on routes 57, 59 and 82, giving that corner of Melbourne Melbourne’s newest and most up-to-date trams very shortly. Of course this comes on top of the order of existing X’Trapolis trains – X’Trapolis 1.0, if you like – that have been locally made right here and out there in Ballarat, and this is the government that has supported it. Indeed we support it more with the 82 new VLocity regional trains that we have also delivered. We are seeing those services come through, with not just the new trains replacing older, increasingly unreliable stock, but also the new trains providing that extra capacity for more services.

In the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee last year we had many debates and discussions in our outcome hearings about the Warrnambool train line. I acknowledge that, as Ms Ermacora will be the first to say, there has been a fair amount of disruption as we have upgraded that line and done those important works. The end result of that now is that we do have the Warrnambool line running much more reliably, with more services as a result of VLocity trains being used on those lines – locally built in fact in that case in Dandenong in my electorate of South-Eastern Metropolitan Region. It is terrific that we are seeing the benefit of the skills and the workers in my electorate that have gone into making those trains in places like Warrnambool, in Gippsland, in the west and in Northern Victoria. It was very disappointing that we had the Liberal members of PAEC at that time, Mrs McArthur and Mr McGowan, attacking those new VLocity trains and attacking the local jobs that have gone into that. I would hope that we have united support for Victorian manufacturing, for Victorian rolling stock in this chamber. Sadly, it appears that we do not. There were some disparaging comments about the X’Trapolis 2.0 trains as well, which completely misunderstood the very purpose of these trains. Nevertheless, on this side of the house we will continue to champion local jobs for Victorian workers right across this state.