Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If there's something that frustrates the people in my electorate more than anything—particularly the people who live in the northern part, the Goulburn Valley—it's the historically poor rail service between Shepparton and Melbourne. Long before I came into this place, I was an advocate for better rail services between Greater Shepparton and Melbourne. There were not enough services, and the services that were there were very slow and uncomfortable.

The previous government, the coalition government, funded stage 3 of the Shepparton rail corridor plan to the tune of $320 million. That meant that we'd go from five return services to Melbourne per day to nine services. It was a great investment by the previous government. We funded it at 80-20 and not at the 50-50 that the current government's talking about in relation to state projects.

Promises were made by the state government when delivering this program with the federal government money. Jacinta Allan, now Premier, then said:

… using the expertise in place on the Shepparton Line is allowing works on Stage 3 to commence sooner, with a targeted completion date of 2023.

In a further media release on 10 November 2021, she said:

Stage 2 of the upgrade is targeted for completion late next year, while Stage 3 is scheduled for completion in 2023.

We're in the back end of 2024, and the project still hasn't been delivered. Not only that—the federal government was asked for and was required to commit an extra $11 million, which was announced in the May 2024 federal budget. So, when perfectly reasonable questions were asked to the state government about what's going on, why the delay and why the cost blowout, a government spokesman—not a minister; it would be nice to have had a minister put their name to it—said, 'We won't take lectures from the Liberals and Nationals.' Well, if it weren't for the Liberals and Nationals, including the former deputy prime minister, Mr McCormack, there wouldn't be the funding for the project. The project's funded, but it hasn't been delivered. The people, my constituents—this is a constituency statement—are asking, 'Why hasn't this been delivered?' It's very frustrating when federal governments put money towards projects only to have state governments have continual blowouts and delays.

The people of Greater Shepparton and the whole of the Goulburn Valley want to be able to get on one of the nine services between Shepparton and Melbourne that were promised. They don't want to have to get up early and pick between only five services. The question remains for the Victorian government. We're at the back end of 2024, and you promised them by the end of 2023. When are we going to get the extra services?