Damian Drum (Murray, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to visit the electoral towns of Euroa and Violet Town in the seat of Murray. The message coming back from the community leaders was very clear. They are sick and tired of having a substandard passenger rail service right through the north east. The North East Line of Victoria services appropriately 150,000 people: Euroa, Violet Town, Avenel and some of the smaller towns. But Wangaratta, Wodonga and Albury in New South Wales are all serviced by the North East line.

This area has been ignored by the state Labor Party for too long. There has been no new rolling stock from the Labor Party of Victoria for the North East Line. It is an absolute joke. It is great to see that the National Party, with Darren Chester as the lead minister, is starting to invest in state passenger rail: $100 million to fix up this line so that we will be able to effectively have a reliable service to service the north east. There are over 150,000 people who are currently putting up with a Labor Party in Victoria who totally neglect and them and ignore regional Victoria. The ability to bring this stage of the track up to a significant level is something that we have been working on for many years. There has been significant waste on this track for many, many years. (Time expired)

See this speech in context