Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak of two issues that are important to a number of communities in the electorate of McEwen. The first issue—of course it is the Carlton draft, but we all share that pain! The first issue is the Liberals' broken promise for Solar Towns Program funding for Sunbury and the Macedon Ranges. The second issue is the election promise that Labor kept with the recent installation of traffic lights at a notorious intersection in Craigieburn.

In the 2013 federal election, the Liberals made an election promise to the communities in the Sunbury and Macedon Ranges area for solar funding as part of the Solar Towns Program. For the Sunbury and Macedon Ranges communities, the money would be used to cut electricity costs at community sports stadiums. The commitment was supported and tweeted by the then shadow minister for climate action, environment and heritage, the member for Flinders, and there is his tweet of his picture with the Liberal candidate, welcoming this promise. But in October 2013, the mayor of the Hume City Council wrote to the newly elected minister congratulating him on his role and, in the same letter, the mayor sought to progress the funding for this election commitment. The response from the Department of the Environment was to essentially say, 'Watch this space,' as details of the policy and program would roll out in June 2014.

Well, the solar program did roll out in June 2014, as indicated by the department, but with reduced funding. The minister's promise of $50 million for the Solar Towns Program was revised down to $2.1 million by the Liberal government, which, no doubt, has impacted on the ability of the program to roll out as anticipated.

The 2014-15 funding was allocated to successful programs in the Surf Coast Shire of Victoria. The 2015-16 funding round recently closed with nominations only open for community organisations operating within the cities of Playford or Salisbury in South Australia. There was no mention of the funding as promised to the Sunbury and the Macedon Ranges communities—not a squeak! On its website, the department set out the government commitment to install renewable energy systems in preselected community sites and regions. But just exactly where are these preselected community sites? And where are the regions? How does a site or region get preselected? Does this include the sites of Sunbury and the Macedon Ranges which were promised funding?

These communities were made an election promise in 2013 and have not heard a squeak from the responsible minister about the promise being fulfilled. In fact, the most recent advice from the department provides no certainty to the local council in this regard. The Hume City Council has been told that the next round of funding will be open before the end of 2015 and 'may include' Sunbury and the Macedon Ranges. It may include those areas. No certainty or assurance has been provided.

What is needed is greater transparency in the funding allocation process. The type of information that should be available and would assist local councils, including the City of Hume, would be to see a list of the preselected sites and regions being made available to the public as well as the department's timeline for allocating funding to these preselected areas.

Let us look at where we currently stand. We had a 2013 election commitment. Two years down the road—two prime ministers—and we have no timeline or assurance that this commitment will actually be fulfilled. If we continue down this road and do not apply any kind of circuit-breaker or change to the current process, we all know where it is going to lead: it will lead to yet another broken promise by the Liberals in the electorate of McEwen.

Whilst on the topic of election promises, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Hume City Council and the Craigieburn Residents' Association on helping me to deliver on a commitment that I made at the 2013 election. I promised that, if re-elected, I would fight for and deliver much-needed traffic lights at the corner of Hanson Road and Craigieburn Road. This has been an ongoing issue for residents for as long I can remember—even back when I bought my first house, in Craigieburn, in 1991. By working together we secured the necessary funding and just last week saw completed the construction of the new traffic lights at one of the busiest and most notorious intersections in Craigieburn.

The importance of this project to the local community cannot be understated. The community had been campaigning for these traffic lights to be installed to improve pedestrian and traffic safety in the area around Craigieburn Plaza shops. The new traffic lights will save lives, as the number of accidents at this intersection over the years has been terrible. It will also improve the commute to school and to work for many people by making the traffic-flow smoother.

I was proud to be at the launch of the new traffic lights last week, with the council and with the residents' association, as we celebrated the delivery of a Labor election commitment within the community.