Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (16:00): I rise in support of Mr Davis’s motion requiring the Leader of the Government to table in the Council by Wednesday, 18 March, the strategic business case for the Melbourne Airport rail link. These documents are obviously and clearly in the public interest, and it beggars belief that this government would ever not be interested in ensuring that there was proper reporting and proper transparency. After all, they impose it on every other sector in this state. Copious amounts of transparency and reporting are required by so many other areas, so what have they got to hide? Surely, the public are entitled to these documents, and as Mr Limbrick has said, so are the members of this Parliament.

Now, it has been extremely concerning to hear recent reports that the government is intending to run trains for the airport rail link through the Metro Tunnel, not a new western tunnel. This has all the short-termist hallmarks of a government losing its grip on the budget, losing its way in strategic infrastructure planning and defaulting to panic measures which, if adopted, will compromise Victoria for decades to come. Infrastructure projects once built cannot be repealed like legislation. They cannot be reset like budgets. They cannot be discarded like policy. They are singularly ill suited to political meddling, which is perhaps why this government has such a poor track record on them.

The fact that the minister this week would not confirm what options are being considered rings alarm bells. Coming on top of the ripped-up contracts, project overruns, budget blowouts and toxic soil issues, it is no surprise that the Andrews government is starting to panic about building another tunnel. Obviously they would be concerned to release documents that might tell us why it is important to have the proper project, not the half-baked one that could be on the cards. Just to quote Ms Shing, ‘If this project is done properly, it will be nation building’.

This project is desperately needed. The new track works and western tunnel would speed up and open up track capacity for regional rail access into Melbourne. It would be the first step in the high-speed rail for Geelong project promised for so long. This is a key infrastructure project, an opportunity we must seize to future-proof our transport system and enable growth in regional towns to take the pressure of the ever-rising population in the capital. It is an essential part of rebalancing our state’s economy and looking beyond the tram tracks to the rest of Victoria.

Geelong and Ballarat are projected to grow by 36 per cent and 31 per cent respectively in the next 15 years. This will take the City of Greater Geelong to a population of nearly 400 000 people. Already in the last five years passenger numbers on the Geelong line have more than doubled. There is no sign these trends will change, and yet at this key decision point the state government appears ready to bury its head in the sand.

Ditching plans for a new western tunnel in favour of using the Metro Tunnel does not just delay necessary investment, it will set it back for decades. When committed, taking this approach effectively rules out the alternative and will put an end to any hope of a comprehensive high-speed regional rail service across the west. So documents are required and should be made available.

The CEO for the Committee for Ballarat, Michael Poulton, said:

To achieve high speed rail to the regions, to help ease the pressures of population in Melbourne, to ease congestion through Melbourne’s booming west and to deliver for Victoria a world class airport rail link, requires the key enabler of a tunnel that gives a new runway into Southern Cross Station.

Just last week, the cities of Greater Geelong and Wyndham came together to make the same call on government. Geelong mayor Cr Stephanie Asher said:

Fast and frequent rail services to Wyndham and Geelong have the potential to significantly impact the long-term liveability of our regions, opening up employment and education opportunities and allowing our residents to spend less time on the train and more time with their loved ones.

She joined business groups, councils and passenger representatives in condemning the rumoured downgrade by the Andrews government.

The delivery of an infrastructure project is of course never straightforward, but in this case the strategic case behind it is overwhelmingly clear. It is the reason the coalition funded it in 2014, the reason the federal government committed $5 billion in funding just last year, the reason that councils, businesses and commuters continue to demand it. Even the Andrews government realised the extra track capacity was necessary when announcing their support in 2017. The apparent change in approach has not come about because of any change in the need for this investment or in its technical deliverability, but because the government is seeking to cut costs and avoid the risk of another failed project. It would mark an epic failure of government.

So what is the alternative? Without a new tunnel, without the extra track from Sunshine to Southern Cross, airport trains will run with Metro trains, affecting not just regional commuters from Geelong and Ballarat but passengers from Melton, Sunbury and Wyndham Vale too. In the short term the Metro Tunnel option is barely adequate. In the long term it will prove disastrous. Even at the time of opening, it is likely that 90 per cent of the 24-hour, hourly train paths it makes possible will be required at peak time on the Melton and Sunbury corridor. It is inevitable that the remaining capacity will be quickly taken up. Just to give an indication of that, the population of Melton in my electorate has tripled in less than 20 years, growing from around 50 000 to more than 160 000.

To add airport trains to this mix simply will not work. It will condemn passengers from the west to a more congested, less resilient, slower service, stopping at all stations on the way into the city. It may be a cheap solution but it is a botched one. Using the Metro Tunnel would give up all the gains the people of Geelong, Ballarat and Western Victoria Region more widely have been promised now for decades. It is short-termism in action, sacrificing the future to make cheaper and easier decisions now. To shirk this decision is not just a failure in competence by this government, it is a failure in character, the consequences of which the people of Western Victoria will have to live with for generations. Producing the documents demanded in this motion is vital for the proper transparency of this huge infrastructure investment. I support the motion.