Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to mention a matter which I've discussed on a number of occasions in this place, the North East Link. It's a matter which is of particular concern to constituents in my electorate and in surrounding electorates, including yours, Mr Speaker.

On the weekend, the North East Link Authority released the latest plans and proposals in relation to this important transport connection in Melbourne. Why is this important? It's important because there are so few crossings of the Yarra River once one moves east of the CBD in Melbourne. There's a crossing at Chandler Highway, which is being currently upgraded—and that is very welcome by those who use Chandler Highway on a regular basis, even occasional cyclists like myself. Then there's a crossing at Manningham Road or Bridge Street. Then you have to go out to Fitzsimons Lane to the next crossing. Following that, you have to go further out to Warrandyte to the next crossing. Then you go into your electorate, Mr Speaker, to Yarra Glen to get to the next crossing.

Huge parts of Melbourne with very large populations that need to cross the Yarra River are constrained by very few crossings of this river. That is compounded by the fact that Melbourne is growing generally yet there is no connection between the Northern Ring Road and the Eastern Freeway. The Western Ring Road, which becomes the Northern Ring Road, which is a major transport corridor for Melbourne, is unconnected to the Eastern Freeway and the Eastlink, which is another major corridor for Melbourne. There is a connection between Eastlink and the Monash Freeway. So this creates a problem. Vehicles using the Northern Ring Road or the Eastern Freeway that want to transit between the two, including many heavy vehicles carrying goods, have to travel through roads which weren't built for the purpose. Indeed, in many instances they have to travel through secondary streets and suburban areas that weren't planned for that purpose.

The idea of the North East Link is one which has a great deal of logic to it in terms of the planning of Melbourne, but there are problems with the proposals which have been brought forward. The first one is that the chosen route, from Greensborough and Watsonia down to Bulleen and then joining the Eastlink, is obviously the shortest and least expensive of those proposals. It makes sense for a lot of reasons. However, there are difficulties that arise from the proposal.

The first and most immediate difficulty, which affects businesses and residents in my constituency, is what happens to all those businesses in Bulleen. There are more than 100 businesses there, which, it's proposed, will simply be done away with. There's no proposal for where they might be relocated. There are actually hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs in that area. This will have a major impact on the rating base of the city of Manningham. The new proposal, which is an advance on the previous one, provides that there is not the spaghetti junction that there was before but something much more modest which allows space. I'd ask the authority, on behalf of my businesses and residents, to look at how they can keep as many of those businesses as possible.

The second difficulty is that part of this proposal is to expand the Eastern Freeway and to provide a bus route out to Doncaster. Those changes are all very good and all very welcome, but the expansion of the Eastern Freeway and the culmination of bringing the North East Link begs the question, when the traffic gets to Clifton Hill, where does it go? As you know, Mr Speaker, the East West Link is the answer to that. If we're going to have the North East Link, we also need the East West Link. I'd encourage the state government in Victoria—hopefully a Liberal government after the next election—to revisit the East West Link.

House adjourned at 20:00

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mrs Wicks) took the chair at 16:00.

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