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

It was a great occasion yesterday. We had a number of councils in the south-east of Melbourne attend Australian Parliament House with their vision of what is required for the south-east of Melbourne. Can I specifically think Casey council. It was great to have the mayor, Amanda Stapleton, present with the CEO Glenn Patterson and the mayor of Cardinia, Graeme Moore, with CEO Carol Jeffs. Both the CEOs have recently been appointment, and the great thing is they both have a great passion and vision for the south-east.

One of the two projects which really grabbed my attention is the Thompsons Road extension. This is a 30-kilometre extension from Clyde Road to, I believe, Koo Wee Rup. This project will actually open up an area down at Officer's south. The intention of Cardinia council is to create 100,000 local jobs, which is something very exciting, especially since I would say La Trobe is now the fastest-growing electorate in the country, after looking at the redistribution. This is something really important. The whole purpose is to make sure that local people do not need to travel on the Monash Freeway to go to work but can stay in the local area.

The other project that has been spoken about for so many years is a Koo Wee Rup airport—to have an airport out in the south-east of Victoria. I think it's vital. Victoria is growing so rapidly; it makes no sense that we have only the Tullamarine international airport. There are investors ready to build a second major airport in the south-east. They obviously need assistance there, but they also need rail and road to connect there. Again, that's something I'm very excited about.

The Monash Freeway stage 2 will be commencing soon. That is something I committed to back in March 2016. Stage 1 has now been completed from the South Gippsland Highway to Clyde Road. Stage 2 is really about going to that new growth corridor from Clyde Road to Cardinia Road, but also, very specifically, about the Beaconsfield interchange, something which I've advocated for so many years, and the extension of O'Shea Road. Why is the Beaconsfield interchange so important? It opens up another area at Minta city to create an amazing 10,000 jobs. We want to see jobs and we want to see local people in those jobs.

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