Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When you drive south along Clyde Road to Tooradin or north towards Berwick, depending on which part of Clyde Road you're on, you see the new Casey Hospital. It's been renovated by the Andrews state Labor government. If there is anything that symbolised the investment of the Andrews state Labor government in our region—in the state seat of Cranbourne, in particular and in Narre south and Narre north—with the huge infrastructure investment by Daniel Andrews, it's the Casey Hospital. It's the roads that have been built, it's the schools that have been built and it's the hospitals that have been built. It's the social infrastructure that's been built by the Andrews Labor government.

In that period of time, in that four years, we've had a Labor government investing in what people need in the outer south-eastern suburbs. But what we haven't had is a partner, a federal partner, that would seek to co-invest with us to ensure that the people in our region get the infrastructure that they need and they deserve, and what they pay their taxes for.

Imagine my delight when the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, came down to Thompsons Road on Sunday morning 24 March to announce an $850 million co-investment with the Andrews Labor government to invest in roads in the south-east. We were on Thompsons Road, which is a key east-west feeder road for the south-eastern region. It affects seats like Dunkley, Isaacs, La Trobe, my seat and Flinders. It's a key east-west movement point.

And so for people in the outer suburbs to see the Leader of the Opposition there sent a very powerful signal. He was standing along Dan Andrews, as I was, when we announced a co-investment: an $850 million upgrade to congested roads. It will also create new jobs and, obviously, slash travel times for residents of the south-eastern suburbs. It's a partnership.

What this means in Holt is that an extra lane will be added each way, in each direction, to the Narre Warren-Cranbourne Road in Cranbourne. And we're also going to invest $65 million towards the completion of the upgrade and duplication of the 10.7 kilometre stretch of Thompsons Road between the Dandenong-Frankston Road and the Berwick-Cranbourne Road.

We're Australia's fastest-growing city—that's Melbourne—but despite being home to a quarter of our population we've received as little as a 7c in the dollar spend on infrastructure from the federal government. This state, Victoria, needs; the country needs; and Holt needs a Shorten Labor government to co-invest with Daniel Andrews to give them the infrastructure that they need.