Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I do thank the member for her question, and I remind the House that our government, in fact, has committed additional funding to allow the Frankston commuter car park in her electorate to be able to proceed, as we recently discussed when she came to my office to raise this issue and to advocate in relation to the Frankston commuter car park. It's very confusing what Labor's position is. Do they support the commuter car parks? It appears they do support a commuter car park in Frankston, and I welcome that. And I welcome the fact that we are committed to delivering it—500 spots in that multi-storey commuter car park—and many people on the Frankston line will benefit from that.

We're committed to the Macarthur commuter car park in the seat of the member for Macarthur. Labor's position on commuter car parks is really mystifyingly schizophrenic because, on the one hand, they criticise the Commuter Car Park program; on the other hand, we certainly don't hear members standing up and saying, 'Oh, the commuter car park that the Morrison government has promised for my electorate—I don't want that, because we're opposed to commuter car parks.'

I'll tell you what our position is. Our position is very consistent: commuter car parks are delivering benefits to citizens because they reduce congestion on the road network, because they allow people to drive to a railway station to park their car and then get on the train, thereby reducing congestion. There's a very sensible policy reason for this program, no doubt the very same policy reason which motivated the decision of the opposition to commit to a park-and-ride fund at the last election. And, of course, there are 11 commuter car parks committed to by the Morrison government which are also committed to by the other side of the House. So it is really mystifying trying to discern what Labor's position on this is, but our position is consistent. We're getting on with delivering commuter car parks, and I'm pleased to say that, just in the last week or so, the Ferny Grove commuter car park—

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