Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note the contribution of the Melbourne Storm to the State of Origin, our emancipated team to support the State of Origin, and it is good to see the talent getting a chance to flourish.

I rise tonight to add to some comments I made earlier today about the despair and the increasingly desperate state of traffic movement through Frankston. I particularly draw attention to what is a bittersweet moment fast approaching our community. In a bit over a week, EastLink will be opened. It is a magnificent piece of engineering infrastructure, and I commend all those involved with its construction regardless of their association. They seem to have done a very good job in a very short time frame.

The bitterness, though, is that we were all promised a toll-free Scoresby Freeway. Unlike your community, Member for Maribyrnong, to the north of the city and those to the west, my community and those to the south and the south-east of Melbourne are the only ones who pay to use the arterial ring road. That cannot be good news for our community. Our working families cannot be pleased about that either and the cost pressures that that puts on those involved in those big commutes. In terms of attracting investment to our community, the cost penalty of being the only part of the Greater Melbourne area that is obliged to pay tolls on an arterial ring road is certainly lead in the saddlebag we could do without.

What we could also do without is the inaction of the state Labor government in relation to the intersection at Frankston-Cranbourne Road at the end of the Frankston Freeway. EastLink, for those who are not aware, is going to interconnect with the Frankston Freeway just north of Seaford. What we do not have is a plan at this stage to relieve the traffic pressures that are already profound and causing great delays and frustration at that intersection. And they will be added to by around a 25 per cent increase in traffic volumes.

I mentioned earlier in this House that the state Labor government had waved around a $20 million announcement saying that it planned to do some alleviation works and all we have to show for that some two years later is the press release. But it does bring into sharp attention the need for the Frankston bypass, an important piece of infrastructure. I think it is an essential piece of infrastructure—and few argue against its need—and one that can be carried out with sensitivity to the local environment, to the neighbourhood amenity and also in terms of the longer term interests of the community that I represent and those further down the Mornington Peninsula.

What we do not need are tolls. We do not need more tolls punishing our community. We do not need people living some 60 kilometres away from the CBD paying a toll which many often link to congestion pricing as you get nearer to the CBD or you are on the autostrada or autobahn on some world-class freeway running between major capital cities in continental Europe or the like. Sixty kilometres out of the downtown Melbourne area is not the place for tolls. We need the Frankston bypass. We need it as a freeway but not as a feeway. We do not need another feeway that punishes our community.

We can look at the case for it being built without tolls. The Bracks government, as it was then, promised and wrote to all my constituents saying that the Scoresby Freeway would not be tolled, only then after the election to turn around and impose a toll on the basis of shortage of money even though they were rolling in cash. If you look up and down the Scoresby corridor you can see Dandenong, not far from my community. They were gifted a Dandenong bypass. If you look further up the corridor, to Knox, you can see the Knox light rail extension. If you go further up the corridor, up towards Ringwood, you can see the toll-free interchange there, almost a compensatory project for the hardship and the harm caused by the imposition of tolls. What do we get down our way? Nothing. Because we have Marcel Marceau state members of parliament more interested in representing the Labor brand than standing up to the Labor government representing our community. So we have got nothing. Here is an opportunity to remedy some of the harm and hardship of that betrayal.

Premier Brumby was the Treasurer at the time when the toll decision was introduced. He could make good—he has a lot of ground to catch up on in our community—and make sure that this project is carried forward as a freeway, not a feeway. He could make sure that the very important EES process takes into account the important alignment issues through the Pines flora and fauna reserve and make sure that those communities in residential areas around Lakewood and Tahnee Lodge have proper sound protection barriers. I have been assured by SEITA—the people carrying out the EES—that all of this will happen. He can make sure that Centenary Park Golf Club is not adversely impacted upon by this project and he can make sure that the land use planning issues that accompany this project are properly worked through. I am optimistic that all that can happen, but I fear—and I share the fear of many in our community—that we are going to be dudded again by the state Labor government. When we need a freeway, it looks like we are going to get a feeway. We have seen local councillors float this idea. We have to kill that idea off and get what we deserve. (Time expired)