Thursday, 26 May 2022

Ministers statements: Metro Tunnel

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (14:05): I am delighted to rise to update the house on the very significant progress that the government and all of its partners are making on the Metro Tunnel project. It will be even bigger when we get to the Suburban Rail Loop, but for the moment it is the biggest ever public transport project in our state’s history. It is a transformational project. It is all about taking the busiest line out of the city loop. That frees up space for every other line, and it means that we have five new underground stations and a turn-up-and-go train system with no timetable required.

I remember, though: ‘Oh, that’ll never get built’. And you can turn your back now. They turned their back on passengers everywhere: ‘That’ll never get built’. Well, it is getting built all right. It is getting built, and it is so far ahead of schedule that we are having to recruit drivers for those trains—trains made in Melbourne by Melburnians—and signallers and all the other staff, some 300 staff, now in order to train them to be ready because it is running so far ahead of schedule. Forty-four weeks of training and 120 drivers we need, and we are getting on and recruiting those staff. There are 65 high-capacity metro trains—again a great asset; bigger, much greater capacity—brand new rolling stock, new twin tunnels, five new underground stations and state-of-the-art features that we have never seen before, allowing our busiest train line to be much more efficient. You turn up and go, as I said—no timetable required. Every line and every Victorian benefits from this, because if you can take some of the congestion out of the current city loop, that means you can run more trains more often right across our network—not to mention removing level crossings means you can get on and run more trains more often as well. We are getting this done.