Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Defence, Senator Johnston, to a question without notice asked by Senator Rice today relating to the East West Link.

Minister Johnston said the government wanted to work with the people of Victoria and the new government in Victoria, yet the government is clearly not listening. In proceeding with the proposal to fund the East West Link, the federal government is ignoring the wishes of the Victorian electors and the results of the Victorian election. The results of Saturday's election show that Victorians do not want the East West Link. It was the Prime Minister himself who said that the election was going to be a referendum on the East West Link. It was, and the results are in. Victorians want investment in public transport, not massive, polluting, massively expensive new tollways. Opinion polls consistently show support for public transport over tollways. In his answer, Senator Johnston focused on the supposed benefits of the East West Link, yet neither his government nor the outgoing Napthine Liberal government was willing to release the business case for the East West Link to public scrutiny. It has been hidden from the public. Incoming Labor Premier Daniel Andrews has promised to release the business case. I look forward to seeing it, to see just how extremely expensive and economically unviable the East West Link is likely to be.

Senator Johnston then went on to try and justify the East West Link by saying it would be a route that buses and taxis would use. It would be an extremely expensive bus route—an $18 billion bus route. If the government was actually interested in funding bus projects, then it should be funding bus projects. An assessment by the Bus Association of Victoria shows that for less than a 10th of the cost of the East West Link, for about half a billion dollars, every resident of metropolitan Melbourne could be within a 10-minute walk of a bus service that operated every 10 minutes, taking people directly to a train station. This would be a fraction of the cost of the East West Link. It would immediately create jobs in the outer suburbs. It would immediately create a potential market for bus manufacturers.

It is important to spend our money wisely, particularly given the situation of decreasing revenues. Spending our money on a massively expensive tollway, as the government seems to be insisting on continuing to do, is not spending our dollars wisely. Infrastructure Australia did not assess the East West Link as a priority project. They have other projects in Victoria which they have assessed as priority projects. The Melbourne Metro has been considered by Infrastructure Australia and was assessed as being a priority project; but, for the ideological reasons of not funding public transport, that is not being considered by the federal government for funding.

There are many other public transport projects in Victoria that the Greens think would be potential priority projects that could benefit from federal funding, if Infrastructure Australia were given the opportunity of assessing them. Some of these are Doncaster Rail, signalling upgrades that would allow up to twice as many trains to use the existing rail network, airport rail and electrification and duplication is required of the rail line to Melton.

We are strongly committed to an Infrastructure Australia process of independent, thorough, transparent assessment before federal moneys are allocated to projects. This was blatantly not the case with the East West Link. We urge the government to recognise this and to realise that we are now in different circumstances, with a new government in Victoria, and to work with that government, to listen to Victorians and to fund public transport.

Question agreed to.