Ministers statements: level crossing removals
Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop) (14:17:477:): This morning trains are running through the new Glenroy station, and cars for the very first time are travelling across a level crossing free Glenroy Road. At 6.00 am this morning the member for Pascoe Vale was out there talking with delighted members of the local community. I will just read out to the house one piece of feedback the member for Pascoe Vale and I received from a happy local: ‘We zoomed to school in 5 minutes. My son and I had time to spend, having a baby Chino instead of being stuck in traffic for 20 minutes. Thank you, Daniel Andrews’. That is why we get rid of dangerous and congested level crossings, and Glenroy marks the 60th level crossing we have removed, six months ahead of schedule, when we said we would remove 50. What does this mean? Not only are these boom gates gone, I can advise the house that this means there are 42 hours less of boom-gate downtime across the city, thanks to the removal of these 60 level crossings, plus there is more: 35 new and upgraded stations, thousands of new car parks, rail corridors duplicated, road bridges and connections, 2 million trees planted, 20 MCGs worth of open space and 42 kilometres of walking and cycling paths. What an effort! Thanks to the 6000 people who are working on this program right now on sites and in small business; they have helped make this happen.
But there are some risks out there. We know there are risks. People call these additional investments—an extra 35 level crossings, an extra 35 stations, 42 kilometres of walking paths—a cost. They call that a blowout. We heard in this house this morning, as we have heard before, only the Andrews Labor government will remove dangerous and congested level crossings and only a Liberal government will cut those projects and cut those wages.