Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to rise today to talk on this issue because this is an issue about trust and it is an issue about who we should trust to govern the state of Victoria. We all know the Victorian people will go to the ballot box on Saturday, and they have to think clearly about their decision on Saturday. Ultimately they need to decide who they will trust to run the state of Victoria for the next four years. Will they trust Daniel, Dan or Danny Andrews—or is it Andrew Daniels? Or will they trust Denis Napthine and the competent job that he has done in governing the state over the last couple of years. Will they trust Dan Andrews? He said:

A government that actually values our state's reputation and good name doesn't rip up contracts.'

That is what he said on 13 August this year. And yet by 11 September, less than a month later, he said:

I think a ream of Reflex paper would be worth more than those contracts.

He said he would rip the contracts up. Is this a man that the Victorian people can trust?

To quote Friedrich Nietzsche, 'I'm not upset that you lied to me,' Daniel Andrews,' I'm upset that, from now on, I can't believe you.' This is what the Victorian people need to think about on Saturday. They cannot trust this individual. He has lied to them, and it will mean that from now on they will never quite be able to believe what he has said to them, because in the back of their minds they will know that when it came to East West Link he said one thing in August and then, a month later, he said completely the opposite—and he was absolutely shamefaced about it. This election is going to boil down to trust. As far as I am concerned, there is only one person that I can trust to lead the Victorian government for the next four years, and that is Denis Napthine.

Let's have a look at what this project will do. Let's have a look at the key facts around East West Link and what it will mean for Victoria. It will provide capacity for around 100,000 vehicles per day; reduce congestion on the West Gate Bridge, which is currently carrying an unsustainable 200,000 vehicles a day; provide a 15- to 20-minute time-saving for people travelling from Geelong, Werribee, Altona and Laverton to the city; provide a 10- to 15-minute time-saving for people travelling from Ballarat, Melton and Caroline Springs to the city; cut 15 to 20 minutes off a typical trip from the freight and logistics precinct in Truganina in Melbourne's west to the Port of Melbourne; and create up to 3,000 jobs during construction. That last point is the most significant.

The coalition federally and at a state level want to grow the Victorian economy. We want to provide jobs for the Victorian state. We want to make sure that Victoria will go ahead, like it did after the Kennett government built the infrastructure that the state needed. This state government, with the support of the coalition federal government, wants to do exactly the same thing again. It wants to put Victoria in first place when it comes to first-class infrastructure. It wants to Victoria to lead the way when it comes to first-class infrastructure. It wants to provide jobs that will result in us putting in place that first-class infrastructure. Yet what do we have from the other side at the state level and here? We have opposition to job-creating infrastructure.

I plead with the Victorian people when they go to the ballot box on Saturday: think long and hard about your decision. You need to think ultimately about who you can trust to deliver for Victoria for the next four years.

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