Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In the budget just a couple of weeks ago, the government outlined a list of its infrastructure priorities for the next five, 10 and 20 years, but the key omission from the list was the funding of the East West Link in Melbourne. The motion in front of us today argues strongly that the government should reconsider its decision not to prioritise this road and indeed should match the coalition's funding commitment of $1.5 billion to go towards it.

What is the East West Link, you may ask. It is an 18-kilometre stretch of road which would go from the end of the Eastern Freeway in Melbourne, tunnel underneath most of inner-city Carlton, the cemetery and Royal Parade, and join up with the Tullamarine Freeway and the Western Ring Road. As I said, the proposal is to tunnel from the end of the Eastern Freeway under all of the inner-city areas, thus avoiding and protecting those inner-city assets, and reappearing on the other side of those parks.

Now this is the Victorian government's No. 1 priority project. It is also the RACV's top priority infrastructure project that it believes we should be investing in. On 7 May this year, the Napthine government said that it would make this project happen if there was a federal contribution towards it. It made a commitment in its budget on 7 May of $294 million towards this particular project, and it said it would start next year and it would finish within five years. The initial stage, stage 1, which this would fund, is the most difficult and complex stage but arguably also the most important—that is, connecting the end of the Eastern Freeway to the Tullamarine Freeway. It would cost in the vicinity of $6 billion to $8 billion and, from their analyses already, most of this could in fact be funded by private contributions. But they also need a federal government contribution, and the Premier of Victoria has specifically called for a $1.5 billion contribution from the Commonwealth government, which is what Tony Abbott, on behalf of the coalition, has committed to. This would take five years to complete if this was to begin next year, as stated.

This is such an important piece of infrastructure; it would be the most important road in Melbourne to be developed to ease the congestion pressures. Anybody who has been to Melbourne in recent times, or lives in Melbourne, as you do, Mr Deputy Speaker Cheeseman, or just outside it, would know the amount of congestion that is coming on to Melbourne's roads. There has been a marked difference over the past five, 10 or 20 years. Whereas previously it used to be a half-hour journey from my electorate of Aston into the city in the mornings, now it can be a 60- or 90-minute journey, if not more, just to get into the CBD. The cost of this congestion is already estimated to be $2.7 billion per year in the city of Melbourne. And because Melbourne is growing so rapidly, in fact it is the fastest-growing city in Australia, the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics believes that the cost of congestion will escalate to $6.1 billion by 2020. So we are going to see a doubling of the cost of congestion by 2020 if we do not take any remedial action now.

For those who live in electorates like mine and yours, Mr Deputy Speaker Cheeseman, such as the member for Kooyong and the member for Corio, congestion is one of their absolute top issues. They know that when they are spending time stuck in traffic it is time away from their families, it is time away from work, it is time away from recreation. It is just lost time that they will never get back. From a business perspective, congestion just adds to the difficulties of making ends meet. It means that, if you are a business transporting goods or a tradie trying to get from one side of the city to the other, you are just spending time on the road and you are not getting to the destination or the project that you have been engaged to do. All of those costs, the added transportation costs or the added costs to these other small businesses, then just get passed on to everyday consumers in higher prices.

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