Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand here today, as I did on Monday evening, as the very proud member for Lalor. I represent a passionate, proud, informed, active community. The city of Wyndham falls within the boundaries of the electorate of Lalor, and on Monday night I returned home and stood with 6½ thousand locals to say to our state government that we did not approve of the preferred site for a new youth justice precinct in my electorate.

This is a legacy issue in more ways than one. It is a legacy issue that the Parkville facility is no longer fit for purpose, and everyone in my community agrees with the state government that that is the case. It is a legacy issue in that previous governments have also failed to act on in the past, and it has been left to our state government to take this action. The problems that locals in my community have with this preferred site are also about legacy; they are about the fact that this site is planned for a gateway to our community where 1.1 million visitors attend a tourist precinct. This will be situated right near that precinct, and my community would rather not have visitors coming into our city there. We have worked so hard over many years to get the planning right to ensure that this city will grow and provide jobs for our community. It is also a legacy issue in that I stand here, and Barry Jones of course preceded me and was a minister in the Hawke-Keating era. He worked closely with the Cain-Kirner governments to ensure that our technology precinct would be set aside to develop into a thriving, key area in our city. That is why we object to this site.

I have to say that at that meeting I was appalled that I had to listen to Bernie Finn, the MLA for the Liberal Party, play politics in my community. I think it is only fair that Matthew Guy's opposition take some responsibility here, after having failed for four years to do something about finding another place. I think they should acknowledge that they failed to build a single school in the four years they were in government. I think they should acknowledge that they failed to address the needed upgrade to the Mercy hospital while they were in government. They failed to address the congestion of roads and have left that for this state Labor government to fix. We are now looking at two level crossings and $1.2 billion worth of roads funding from our state government.

This site is the wrong site. My community thinks it is the wrong site. I think it is the wrong site. I call on the state government to find another site and get to a win-win position quickly.