Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today, again, to draw the attention of the House to the impact that traffic congestion is having on my home state of Victoria. Traffic congestion is a problem that will cost our economy more than $9 billion per year, according to a report by Infrastructure Australia. That report also revealed that the worst and costliest source of congestion occurred on the roads between CityLink and the Eastern Freeway, and on the Eastern Freeway itself. Infrastructure Australia confirms what residents in my electorate of Deakin have known for years—that traffic on the Eastern Freeway is getting worse by the day.

These frustrating bottlenecks would have been fixed by the East West Link project, which I have long fought for. Thanks to Dan Andrews, Bill Shorten and the Labor Party, we have missed out on a key opportunity to fix this problem, once and for all. Labor decided that instead of building the infrastructure we so desperately need they would capitulate to the Greens and pay out over $640 million to cancel the East West Link project. I will not give up the fight. The Commonwealth government has confirmed that $3 billion remains available to build the East West Link. So I say to Bill Shorten, 'Get on the phone to Dan Andrews and give him permission to build the East West Link.' This is infrastructure that my electorate of Deakin desperately needs.