Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on behalf of the frustrated commuters in my electorate whose daily struggle to get in and out of town has become a political plaything of Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party. This situation has gone completely beyond a joke. The Prime Minister declared the 2014 Victorian election a referendum on the East West Link. The Prime Minister lost that the referendum when Victorian voters elected the Andrews Labor government, which had promised to scrap the project. The then Prime Minister demanded that Labor break its promise and proceed with the project, a demand that reinforces the community's apprehension at this prime minister's casual relationship with promises and the truth. The Prime Minister then said that the Victorians elected their new government 'in a fit of absent mindedness'. And now, even though the Victorian government has cancelled the project, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have decided to rip $3 billion out of Victoria's infrastructure budget so that they can keep the money in a so-called 'locked box'. This is political petulance at its worst. The Abbott government has already given Victoria $1.5 billion of the $3 billion. This unfair budget proposes to take back $1.5 billion from Victorians' pockets and put it into Joe's pocket, to help him balance his deeply unfair budget. Victoria is the second most popular state in Australia. Victoria's continued economic success is vital to the economic health of the entire country, and good congestion-busting infrastructure is essential for Victoria and the Victorian economy.

Why, then, have Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey relegated Victoria to such a low infrastructure priority? This budget only delivers $400 million for infrastructure for Victoria. That is a measly eight per cent of the federal government's infrastructure budget and merely $67 per person for Australia's most populous state. By contrast, New South Wales will soak up 39 per cent of the infrastructure budget, getting $7.7 billion, and Queensland getting $1.5 billion, which is equivalent to $309 per Queenslander. Victorians are being ripped off by this government.

Commuters in my electorate are being ripped off—and worse. Rather than seeking to find a solution to the congestion in the east of Melbourne and work with the Victorian government, Tony Abbott is playing political games. The only people soon to lose, as a result of these games, are the community of my electorate and the neighbouring electorate of Deakin. Driving to and from work on the Eastern Freeway, in peak hour, is a nightmare. In fact, it is a nightmare a lot of the time outside peak hour as well. I should know—I travel on it very regularly! On Sunday night, trying to get to the airport, you would think Sunday night traffic would be fine. But no—as always, it was a nightmare.

There is no doubt that something needs to be done to relieve this congestion, but the East West Tunnel is not—nor was it ever going to be—the solution to this problem. The simple truth is that the former Liberal government of Victoria had a political problem. They had shelved all the planned and shovel-ready infrastructure projects left to them by the former Labor government—and then, promptly, sat on their hands for more than half their term of office. Now, less than two years away from an election, the lack of any meaningful infrastructure investment or construction was threatening to confine them to opposition. So they dumped their leader—Ted Baillieu. Shortly after, in May 2013, new Premier Denis Napthine announced the East West Link. It was a project that he would start before the November 2004 election.

It is important to go back, because right here is where the problem begins with the East West Link. This is not a new project. My first job out of university was with VicRoads, the authority that builds roads. Without divulging my age, even though it is readily available, my first job out of university was a very long time ago! Actually, I was acquiring property for the extension of the Eastern Freeway then. Part of it was to put a rail link down the Eastern Freeway—something the former Liberal government proposed and something I have been advocating for, for quite a long time.

This is not a new project. It is not something miraculous—nor was it ever going to solve any of the congestion problems in the eastern suburbs. What it did do, to some extent, was shore up Liberal state seats in the east. It was first proposed, by Rod Eddington, in 2008, as being primarily a tunnel or bridge for trucks—a tunnel for trucks—carrying freight to the Port of Melbourne. Rod Eddington assessed that the most urgent need was for the inner west to the port, providing an alternative to the West Gate Bridge, a tunnel under or a bridge over the Maribyrnong River, connecting to a northern bypass of the city.

The Napthine Liberal government did not adopt this approach. Instead, looking to marginal seats in Melbourne's east, they focused on the east-west tunnel, falsely promising commuters that this tunnel connection would reduce congestion—even though their own modelling showed it would not. This is because most commuters exit at Hoddle Street. I know this is not exciting for everybody outside of Victoria but it is for everybody in the eastern suburbs! It is the trucks that need to move west to the port and the airport. It is the commuters who need to get into town. This was never going to resolve the issue for my residents trying to get to work.

The Liberal Napthine government was never prepared to be honest about it. It still is not prepared to be honest about it, nor is this current federal government. Nowhere is it prepared to be honest about the fact that at best estimates the economic return of this truck tunnel would deliver just 45c in the dollar to Victoria. This was a $10 billion project, rushed by a desperate Liberal government, and flawed from the start. The Napthine government did everything possible to conceal the crucial details of the project. Then, when things looked dire and the looming election all but lost, Treasurer Michael O'Brien committed an act of bastardry: signing a side letter to the consortium who won the contract—guaranteeing compensation if the contract were cancelled. This is shameful politics at its worst: an unnecessary letter, the sole purpose of which was to sabotage the Andrews Labor government. There were political games right from the start and all the way through.

So here we are today: a project cancelled—as promised by the Daniel Andrews Labor government before the election—a contract entered two weeks before going into caretaker mode and a Prime Minister determined to keep the game alive while commuters suffer in their cars. The Prime Minister is refusing to invest in public transport despite the fact that Melbourne's Metro rail tunnel is No.1 on Infrastructure Australia's priority list. Whilst it seems to some that it would not help commuters from the east, it would—because people from the east want to get on a train and want to get into town. Having better connectivity in Melbourne would assist—more trains travelling all the time. We cannot drive our way out of congestion. We need alternatives to more traffic and we need more public transport options so that more people have more genuine choices about how they travel. That is why I like light rail down the Eastern Freeway. It was probably the best option and one previously committed to by the state Liberal government.

The Prime Minister needs to stop the games and consider alternative projects that will actually relieve congestion in the east, but he is so opposed to this that he will not even consider allowing funding to be diverted to remove level crossings—which is ostensibly a road project. The removal of level crossings in my electorate has already produced greater traffic flow and taken away much congestion. Previously, the Labor state government removed the level crossing at the intersection of Whitehorse Road and Springvale Road and the one at Middleborough Road, creating great outcomes for motorists.

What is needed is long-term solutions, not easy fixes which are all about winning elections. Putting large amounts into one project so that nothing else is able to be built or done in Victoria for a very long time is not the way to go. Rather than agree to any of the many requests from Premier Daniel Andrews for a meeting, Tony Abbott instead sent his finance minister, Mathius Cormann, to meet with the Victorian Leader of the Opposition at a cafe in Spring Street—while the Prime Minister launched a billboard. Instead of actually doing anything, the Prime Minister came down to Ringwood and stood in front of a billboard. He talks about getting rid of congestion but is doing absolutely nothing about it. Indeed, he is doing less than nothing, because he has taken away every infrastructure dollar from Victoria. It is these kinds of cheap political stunts that leave commuters and my electorate in complete despair.

Everyone keeps talking about how infrastructure should be beyond politics. Now is the time for the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, to prove he actually believes that. Put politics aside and find constructive solutions to the traffic congestion in the eastern and western suburbs—not a truck tunnel that was never going to relieve traffic congestion for people trying to get to work on a daily basis. It would be good to see the Prime Minister become the infrastructure Prime Minister he claims he wants to be.