Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to speak on this address-in-reply with regard to La Trobe and a lot of our election commitments. La Trobe is a fantastic electorate. It covers the areas of the south from Berwick to Beaconsfield to Officer, right across the Dandenong Ranges.

A number of the commitments include closed-circuit TV cameras for Beaconsfield community sporting clubs. That was a $10,000 grant. What does that mean for the Beaconsfield football club? It means that they can have a lot more safety and security when it comes to their clubrooms. Everyone knows, including members of parliament and community groups—I know my friend here the member for Dunkley would be very aware—that when a club gets broken into, it actually puts the club under huge pressure. It puts it under financial pressure, but then there are insurance issues and also that basic community lack of respect. The closed-circuit TV cameras did two things. Firstly, it gives that extra bit of protection as a deterrent and, secondly, if there is an event that takes place, the police have a start to go after the offenders.

We also announced solar and battery storage funding for nine community groups and sporting clubs in the area. I went up to the Emerald Community House and made an announcement there, and they were very excited. It does make a big difference to many clubs, including the Upper Ferntree Gully Football Club. Solar panels help a club from having to pay huge electricity bills. It takes a bit of pressure off the club and its committee members.

This is one of my favourite ones to announce. We gave a $50,000 grant for installing water fountains—three in total—at the 1000 Steps. I know, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, you would be very excited about the 1000 Steps in my electorate of La Trobe. For people interstate, the 1000 Steps is based on the Kokoda Trail. As I speak, there are people going up the 1000 Steps in Melbourne. Each weekend there will be maybe 4,000 people doing the stairs. That is about 30,000 per month.

The annoying thing is, the park's rangers—Matt and the other guys down there—spend so much time picking up discarded plastic bottles. It is a lack of respect for the forest and fellow users of the track. A number of coffee cups have been discarded their too. So I say to people, if you take your drink containers there please take them out again. This is a beautiful part of the Dandenong Ranges. It is a major tourist attraction and people should pay a lot more respect to it.

Another big issue is car parking at the base of 1000 Steps. Each weekend the Mount Dandenong Tourist Road has people parked right up to Devils Elbow. Before people trek up the 1000 Steps they, pretty much, walk a kilometre to get there. The problem is in summer. I know there are fires in Victoria today up in Swan Hill and in my electorate all the CFA members will be gearing up for a big fire season. There would not be another electorate in the country where nearly every suburb has a CFA member going from Upper Ferntree Gully right across to Emerald. It is just one of those things in the La Trobe community. Everybody gets involved in the CFA.

The problem when people park their cars at the base of Mount Dandenong Tourist Road is with the CFA trucks. If one goes in each direction, they cannot pass. So it becomes of great concern. We have committed $100,000 to see if we can find a better solution to that car-parking mess down at the bottom. There is also $200,000 to go towards the Upper Ferntree Gully township to see if we can better connect the township to the 1000 Steps. It will also help the traders down there get a lot more business.

Renovations to the Narre Warren North Scout Hall were a $50,000 election commitment. We have already given money to the Narre Warren scouts under other Turnbull government programs. As a former Queen's Scout I always encourage parents to keep their children in the scouting movement or guides—or if they are thinking about joining, just join. It is a fantastic way of having your child learn leadership skills and be involved in a team and in helping each other out—and, at the same time, having a lot of fun. The Upper Ferntree Gully Football Club president, Peter Hards, is doing a fantastic job. We have committed $80,000 to the club for lights. Every club needs good lights. Closed-circuit TV cameras go to the Belgrave Tecoma shopping area to tackle local crime. Crime in La Trobe is bad and closed-circuit TV cameras are a deterrent. Interestingly, we gave Belgrave township closed-circuit TV cameras under the Howard government. We are now going for the upgraded version.

The Basin Football Club has $150,000 for new scoreboards and cricket pitches. Ferny Creek Scout Hall—my old scout hall—gets $200,000 to renovate the two halls. The completion of stage 2 ROC reserve pavilion has $500,000 and the completion of Holm Park recreation reserve and skateboard park has $500,000. So we can have money there for sealing the car park but also for a skate park, which is vital for young people.

There is a multi-use trail link between Emerald and Gembrook. This is something the Cardinia Shire really wanted. It is expanding recreational options. The land or track will be used by horse riders, cyclists, mountain bike riders and walkers. It is going to be great for that area, so we have provided $1 million for that program. Also $1 million went to Gembrook Cockatoo Football Netball Club. I would like to mention Marcus, from the committee, and Damian, the president, because they put a first-class application together. I am very proud of that announcement. They felt a bit left out because we had previously committed $500,000 to the Emerald sporting club down the road, and it is looking absolutely magnificent, what they have done with that money. When government money goes to a sporting group they spend it wisely, as Emerald has done. So many of the players are carpenters or plasterers and they do so much work for free.

We committed $2.5 million to the Dandenong Ranges Ridge Walk. That is a project conducted or managed by the shire rangers and would be over $7 million. The walk goes from Upwey to Montrose. I am really looking forward to certain parts of the forest having boardwalks. Everyone who lives in Victoria loves Victoria, but in winter some of those walking tracks through the Dandenong Ranges get very muddy, and we want to attract more tourism through the hills. That is something I am very excited about.

We are also going to put in a National Heritage application for the Dandenong Ranges, based on our famous landscape artist Tom Roberts and Eugene von Guerard, a Dutch artist. If you go into the gallery in Canberra you will see his works there. There is also Lin Onus, an Indigenous artist. We have a great connection in the electorate to the arts and we want to showcase this along the walk. The council will also undertake work and consultation with the community to put in this application.

As part of our tourism package, the Prime Minister came out during the election and announced $6.5 million to build a discovery centre at Emerald for Puffing Billy. The issue we have at the moment is that when you get off Puffing Billy at Emerald Lake Park on a cold, wet day you pretty much just stand in the rain. It is not much fun. As John Robinson, the CEO, says, we need a first-class facility. Over 400,000 tourists go there each year, and we want to showcase the history of Puffing Billy and of the area.

We have committed $1 million to restoring an old red rattler train—a bit like the Harry Potter train. When I was young, we used to catch them on the Belgrave train line to go into the CBD. At the time, we did not like them; we hated them. But now we have become nostalgic and we want to have them repaired and give them a new lease on life. We want bring international and interstate tourists from the CBD. I would like to acknowledge the Clark twins. These twins have worked on these carriages for so long. Sadly, a few years back, an arsonist destroyed one of the carriages after they had been working on it for three years and only two weeks before the train would have been on the tracks. They are very excited about this million dollars and what it is going to do.

There is also $10 million for the Mount Dandenong Tourist Road, in particular for addressing the concerns of cyclists. Cadel Evans won the Tour de France and, since then, every single weekend we are inundated with cyclists going up and down the Mount Dandenong Tourist Road. This sounds fantastic, but if you are a local resident and you get stuck behind them in a car—Robyn the Clerk is looking up at me; he is a keen cyclist—they do cause a lot of problems. What we want to do is encourage the cyclists, but do it in a way that is actually safe for all. That is a $10 million package, and we will be working with the state government to ensure that is delivered.

Another issue is the widening of the Monash Freeway. We announced very early that we have a billion-dollar plan. I see the member for Aston, who is very passionate about the Monash upgrade, as is my friend the member for Dunkley. This billion-dollar plan will see an extra lane from Warrigal Road right out to Cardinia Road. Why is it so important to go out to Cardinia Road when the state Labor government said to only go to Clyde Road? The simple reason is the growth in suburbs like Officer and Cranbourne North, which is just outside my electorate. It is the fastest-growing suburb in the country. Members of parliament and politicians always get blamed for not having a vision. Well, we need to have this vision. We need to get both of these lanes of the Monash up and going, right from Warrigal Road to Cardinia Road. We also plan to put in the missing on- and off-ramps at the Beaconsfield interchange and extend O'Shea Road from Clyde Road to the interchange. That will relieve congestion on Clyde Road, because every morning and every evening at the moment everyone is getting stuck in traffic around Clyde Road.

The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, made a big commitment to ensure that we could actually do something about the Monash Freeway traffic. I know the member for Narre Warren North, Luke Donnellan, the state minister for roads when we announced our initial plan, said it was a 'bird brain idea', yet he has now come along. He has obviously had a bit of birdseed himself and realised that this is actually a good idea because, at the state Labor level, he has now committed $400 million towards the Monash. They have now agreed to a business plan to look at our billion-dollar approach. Getting people moving again is so vitally important. That is what the Turnbull government is doing. We do need the state Labor government to get on board.

Those are our election commitments at a local level. The other commitment we had, on a national scale, was to have a ban on cosmetics testing on animals by July 2017. That means that new products can no longer be imported into Australia if they have been tested on animals. Existing products will not be taken off the shelves. Also, in Australia, there will be no testing on animals. This is a very progressive move by the Turnbull government. It is something I am very proud to get involved in. I thank those from Be Cruelty-Free Australia and the RSPCA, who got involved in this campaign, as did the Animal Justice Party, who were very supportive with some facts and figures. With that, I will conclude.

See this speech in context