Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this morning to call on the Victorian Labor government, in particular Premier Daniel Andrews, to start investing properly in roads and rail infrastructure across the region I proudly represent, including the Corangamite electorate. That includes investing in a high-speed rail service from Geelong to Melbourne and right down the Warrnambool line. Very disappointingly, the Morrison government has delivered $254 million—a quarter of a billion dollars—for the Geelong rail duplication project, the upgrade of the Warrnambool line, and in four years Labor delivered only $20 million. In the state election Daniel Andrews did a lot of talking about delivering, but for our region he did very little, and that is incredibly disappointing. The best we got was an election commitment, but what we need is high-speed rail akin to what the Liberals committed to, which is a metro line opening the Colac to Bannockburn line and also a new service for Werribee through to Waurn Ponds.

We need an upgraded Hamilton Highway, which is more like a goat track than a highway. We need guaranteed ongoing funding for the Great Ocean Road. It's of particular concern that Darren Cheeseman has been elected as the member for South Barwon, because when he was the member for Corangamite he did not support funding the Great Ocean Road. In fact, he accused the Liberals of saying we were going to build a four-lane highway. He had such little intellectual rigour in his assessment of the importance of that road that he did not back it. So I'm calling on Labor to back the Great Ocean Road, to deliver the funding commitments that we've made to regional roads and to get on with the work.

We've delivered $5 million to the Forest-Apollo Bay Road safety upgrade, and very little work has been done—none of the slow pull-out lanes that Labor committed to. We need an upgraded Deans Marsh-Lorne Road. We need to ensure that the Princes Highway duplication is of a proper standard. Too many parts of that road have not been built to standard and have had to be redone. We need a proper western road link for Geelong and, of course, Labor's West Gate Tunnel Project. Labor committed to commute savings of 20 minutes for Geelong commuters and, of course, we've now discovered that that was not the truth. It's 10 minutes at best.

We need a proper road link from the ring-road extended through to the Bellarine Peninsula. It's taken Labor four years to get going on the Drysdale bypass. There have been too many failings on roads and infrastructure in our region. Labor needs to get serious and get on with these projects, and start putting money into the regions, particularly into the Corangamite electorate and into south-west Victoria.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If no member present objects, three-minute statements will continue for another 30 minutes.