Phillip Barresi (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I grieve today for the thousands of motorists and public transport users in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, particularly those in the Deakin electorate. I also grieve for the safety of commuters who use our public transport system daily and who, through the neglect of the state government, are at risk because of a lack of quality rail infrastructure and investment in making our rail system safe.

In my electorate of Deakin, in Melbourne, more than 250 trains are scheduled per day on the Belgrave-Lilydale line to transport over 100,000 passengers to and from the city. Each day these trains travel over multiple level crossings. In my electorate alone, there are six level crossings, the majority of which intersect some of the busiest and most vital north-south roads in Melbourne—roads such as Mitcham, Springvale and Blackburn. In fact, all but one of the six level crossing sites are approximately 100 metres from the Maroondah Highway—the lifeblood corridor for the eastern transport system.

The proposition that it is vital for these crossings to be addressed and for the grade separations to take place can be reasonably argued on the grounds of safety. But equally one can argue that, unless the grade separations take place, improvements to public transport infrastructure, such as putting more trains on the line, cannot take place. The concentration of level crossings in my electorate is not an isolated situation. Most areas of metropolitan Melbourne have a level crossing intersecting them and make up the 250 level crossings throughout the inner Melbourne area.

One of the most dangerous black spot sites, if not the No. 1 black spot site, is the level crossing at the Nunawading train station, near the intersection of Whitehorse and Springvale roads. With more than 120,000 cars travelling through this intersection each day, Springvale Road is consistently ranked by the peak motoring body, RACV, as the most dangerous black spot site in Victoria. As a result of this bottleneck, cars can be delayed by up to 20 minutes. This has led to significant traffic congestion, and the once quiet suburban streets have been turned into busy thoroughfares, with impatient drivers looking for ways around the key area.

Given these circumstances, I am pleased to say that the federal government came to the party in 2004 by providing $1.5 million to fund the local Whitehorse City Council to conduct an engineering study into the best way to resolve this issue. With that engineering study currently underway and the council yet to release its findings from the report, the federal government, in order to get the ball rolling on major works, has also contributed $25 million to fund any initial construction. You would have thought, Madam Deputy Speaker, that with a $25 million contribution from the federal government, the state government would say: ‘This is a serious issue. Perhaps we should look at it and make a contribution of our own.’ That has not been the case. In fact, there has been deathly silence from those in the state government. The federal government has come to the party on the issue of a level crossing, which, traditionally, it would not fund, and the state government has turned its back on the money. This is a shame. It is absolutely contemptible of the state government to do this, and it certainly shows how they rate the motorists and the public transport users of the eastern suburbs.

Quite rightly, constituents have come up to me in the streets and asked why their state government has not fixed Springvale Road. I, like many residents, welcomed the state government’s intervention in the grade separation that took place at the Middleborough Road level crossing, which is located at one end of my electorate. This was an important project and brought much-needed improvement to a bottleneck in eastern Melbourne. But even the council was mystified as to why Middleborough Road was chosen above Springvale Road. The only reason was pure politics. Even the RACV and the Whitehorse City Council—a Labor dominated council—said that Springvale Road needs to be fixed, but the state government turned its back.

The state government has done a good job at Middleborough Road, but that is not the end of it. Let us keep going. When the Middleborough Road grade separation took place, it paved the way for the construction of a possible third railway line from Box Hill right through to Ringwood—a promise which has been made on a number of occasions and is still to be delivered. In the case of Springvale Road, it appears that the state government does not care, despite it being one of the most dangerous intersections in Melbourne. To get an idea of the frustration that we have out there, even state Labor members—not candidates—in the lead-up to the state election in November 2006 were pleading with me, ‘Phil, can you fix Springvale Road for us?’ I said: ‘You’ve got Peter Batchelor, the state transport minister. Go and talk to him.’ The answer from these Labor members was: ‘He’s not interested. He doesn’t want to talk about it.’

Indeed, in the 2007-08 state budget, then state Treasurer John Brumby did not allocate one cent to help upgrade the site. The state Labor member for Mitcham, Tony Robinson, now a minister in the Brumby Labor government, has not fought on behalf of his local community to get the state government to fix this problem. In fact, Mr Robinson’s answer to the traffic problem is to place red light speed cameras at the level crossing. The ETU’s candidate for Deakin has also been silent on this issue. In a survey he sent to constituents in Deakin recently, the issue of roads—and more importantly Springvale Road—was not even on his list of important issues. The response of the Electrical Trade Union’s candidate to the No. 1 issue out there in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne in terms of traffic was to turn his back. This is Labor’s way: ignore the biggest road issue in the east, pretend you understand the concerns of the locals and do the bare minimum work to understand the locals as you surf on the back of a Rudd presidential bandwagon. It is lazy politics and ignorance of the community at best.

Constituents of Deakin can rightly reach the conclusion that Labor does not care about fixing this issue. I would urge as many people from Melbourne as possible who are affected by this issue to send a message to their Labor state MPs and candidates to join with the federal government to fix Springvale Road. I have a petition out at the moment and the response to that petition has been overwhelming. I have been surprised that the response has not come just from the Whitehorse City Council end of my electorate but from throughout the electorate. This road is used by motorists from throughout the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It is also important to those who want to see an upgrade of the train system that goes through that crossing.

The New South Wales government, Madame Deputy Speaker Bishop—the government of your state—in stark contrast to its Victorian counterpart, has had a plan in place to fix level crossings. I know that it is rare to hear a Melbourne based MP praise the efforts of his Sydney counterparts but the state New South Wales governments—not just the current government—and their respective transport bodies, such as the NRMA, deserve credit for addressing the level crossing problem over a number of decades.

According to New South Wales Department of Transport reports, the New South Wales government has eradicated nearly all of the level crossings across Sydney. It has reduced their numbers down to 12 through gradually grade separating a few of them each year based on their use and traffic. This was done in response to the unfortunate rail disasters that have occurred in New South Wales in the last 20 to 30 years. Surely we do not need these sorts of disasters in order to ignite the state Labor government of Victoria to take action. In this debate, I am proposing that a similar approach be adopted by the Victorian state government and that it begin eradicating these dangerous level crossings so that disasters similar to those which occurred in New South Wales and, most recently, the unfortunate disaster that we saw in country Victoria at Kerang can be avoided in future. We do not need those sorts of disasters in order to prompt us to take action.

In June this year, the state government announced that it would invest $33 million in safety upgrades and advertising about safer driving at level crossings. While any funding to improve road safety is always welcome, what is required is a far deeper solution to the problem, and that means grade separating these dangerous intersections. The Victorian state government makes more than $400 million from our roads in fines and penalties, and it is time that this money was put back to good use and used to fix the level crossing time bomb that is sitting in the government’s lap. The New South Wales government shows that it can be done and I strongly urge the Victorian state government to do the same.

Why hasn’t this been done? The only reason I can put it down to is that the state government does not want to come to a project which the federal member for Deakin—me—has been proposing for a number of years. That is at best. If I can be a little bit more conspiratorial, I would have to ask whether there is something in the contract with Connect East, which is building the infamous tollway, which prevents the government from undertaking improvements to Springvale Road. If there is something in that contract, then say so and address the many concerns and questions that the motorists of the eastern suburbs have about this issue. We need it fixed and we need it fixed now. I urge the people of the east to join me in this fight.

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