Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this morning to speak about an important project in my electorate of Corangamite—that is, the duplication of the rail track between South Geelong and Waurn Ponds. This is becoming a greater priority for our region. We have seen enormous growth across the southern part of Geelong. The Geelong line is now V/Line's lines busiest commuter line, with 4.02 million trips made in 2013-14. We have seen a total growth of some 18.5 per cent during the past five years up until 2014. Between Geelong and South Geelong up to 50 services per day use this small section of track, but beyond South Geelong, right the way through to Colac, we have seen the services choked because there is not enough duplicated track, so this project has been recognised as a very important one for our region.

I was very pleased to take the Deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss, the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, to look at this project and I was very pleased with how positively he responded to the needs of our city and to the great electorate of Corangamite. As an example, before 8 o'clock on a weekday morning some 13 trains leave Geelong station, but for Waurn Ponds and Marshall it is about half that. The trains simply cannot access those southern train stations because of the single track. We have seen in many respects an absolute infrastructure crisis in Victoria and that has had a big impact on jobs, no more so than the Andrews government decision to cancel the East West Link, a project that was previously supported by Labor, but now federal Labor have worked hand in hand with Daniel Andrews to destroy that project. That has had a very significant impact on Geelong, on Corangamite, on the western suburbs of Melbourne and on 7,000 jobs which have been destroyed.

I reflect on the terrible way in which the previous Labor government managed Avalon Airport. In 2008 a very exciting deal was achieved by Linfox, the owners of Avalon, in which AirAsia X was going to fly in from Asia, bringing international flights into our region. The permission to do so was rejected by the previous Labor government, and the member for Corio was at the very centre of that. It was an abject failure which has caused enormous economic damage to our region. I want to commend Avalon for the way in which they are pushing that project. We have been very proud to announce that the Department of Defence has endorsed the Avalon Airport master plan. That will allow, subject to some further planning requirements, a whole range of further developments and the extension of the domestic terminal, the construction of a new international terminal—that is a terminal that we have committed to help to build, subject to international flights being secured—and lots of retail, accommodation and industrial development. It is an amazing precinct. It has the potential to host 10,000 jobs. In contrast to the previous Labor government, we recognise how important infrastructure is in our city and we are working very hard with Avalon Airport to support the wonderful achievements happening out at Avalon.

We are very proud of a duplication of the Princes Highway. That is a project for which I have fought very hard since 2009. The Great Ocean Road has been upgraded. Anyone travelling along the Great Ocean Road would see the works underway in Lorne and Anglesea—$25 million from our government and $25 million from the state government, which was committed by the previous Liberal government. This is the road that federal Labor forgot. It was vehemently opposed by federal Labor and unfortunately federal Labor oppose this upgrade to one of the most iconic roads in our region.

I reflect on a letter from Trevor Jennings in the Geelong Advertiser 'Duplicating track needs direction', in which he commends the proposal to duplicate the track and calls on the state government to work with the federal government to push this project forward. He wrote to the Victorian Minister for Public Transport, Jacinta Allan, and she said, 'I can assure you that track duplication is one of PTV's priorities; however, there is no time frame or project to address that question.' That is not good enough. The Victorian government needs to get on with it and work with the federal government to make this project a priority.