Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Right at the moment the federal government has $5 billion on table for the Melbourne Airport rail link project—a train service to be delivered from Melbourne CBD out to Tullamarine. This $5 billion is expected to be matched by the Victorian government. When this project was announced it was expected that the project would total around $10 billion. Whilst the project is predominantly about getting travellers to and from Melbourne Airport, it has the capacity to do much, much more. In fact, the Premier of Victoria said on 23 November 2017, when this was announced, 'This will be about a rail line connecting Melbourne to the airport, but it will also able to deliver a better, faster, more reliable regional rail service. It needs to be done properly.' I'm quoting the Premier word for word here. 'It can give Melbourne's booming west access to electrified metro rail services'—and we all know how much huge growth is occurring in Werribee, Melton and Sunbury—'Ultimately this means we can deliver real high-speed rail to regional Victoria.' Those were the Premier's words. 'This jumbled network of regional and metropolitan tram lines in Melbourne's west means that we can't deliver this properly.' This project was all about separating the Metro line from the regional lines and making this dream a reality. Beginning with Geelong and then to Ballarat, our plan will be to look at how we can deliver high-speed rail to connect all of Victoria. 'Imagine travelling from Geelong to Melbourne in under 40 minutes,' the Premier said. This is the kind of commitment a growing population needs.

Then on 16 October 2018, with regard to the Western Rail Plan, Minister Jacinta Allan spoke about how this plan will deliver the transformation of our state that it needs. She spoke about fast rail to Geelong and Ballarat, all a part of the Melbourne Airport Rail project. She said:

It's only Labor that will get on and deliver true fast rail to our regional centres and create thousands of new jobs in the process—

doing all of this in amongst Melbourne Airport rail. Jacinta Allan went on to say:

The Western Rail Plan is one of the vital projects our growing city and state needs …

It's part of our suburban rail and road blitz.

On 16 October 2018, the government also said they would put:

… additional tracks between Sunshine and CBD, most likely through a new tunnel, which would also be used by airport-bound trains and integrated with the Airport Rail Link.

So now we find out all of these statements are just lies. Premier Andrews and Jacinta Allan are going back on their word to build a rail system for all. They are simply not going to do it. They are going to damage the people in the west and they're going to damage the people in regional Victoria.