Wednesday, 8 June 2022

Suburban Rail Loop

Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (19:08): (6409) My adjournment this evening is to the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and the action I seek is for the minister to update my community on the progress of early works for the Suburban Rail Loop and how the project will benefit my constituents in the Mordialloc electorate. The Suburban Rail Loop project is a substantial project in our local community that will bring generational change in the way we move around our communities in the future. The early progress works that will get underway will be the start of that project as tunnelling goes all the way through to Box Hill—26 kilometres of twin tunnels all the way through to Box Hill will connect those employment precincts and those educational hubs and reimagine how we get across our community with public transport. Just think, a trip from Cheltenham to Clayton will be 10 minutes on the Suburban Rail Loop from that interconnection at Southland, transporting up to 8000 passengers daily once the trains are running in just over a decade to come. It will create thousands of construction jobs and train the next generation of apprentices, trainees and cadets, who will have a pipeline of works.

It goes with substantial investment in our local community. In eight years of the Andrews Labor government we have seen a huge transformation in my local community. Level crossings were not being removed on the Frankston train line until Labor was elected in 2014. The Mordialloc Freeway was lines on a Melway and thought too hard for anyone to deliver. The Melbourne Metro rail tunnel was put on the shelf and not even considered by the previous Liberal-National government. Today we see a very different outcome: the will, the effort and the drive to invest in our state—the engine room of the nation for jobs creation, prosperity and confidence for the future. We have had 16 level crossing removals on the Frankston train line and 11 new stations, and that will go to 20 level crossing removals and 13 brand new stations by 2025. We have completed the Mordialloc Freeway—decades talked about, delivered by an Andrews Labor government: 54 000 vehicle movements each and every day, taking pressure off our local roads and getting my community in Kingston and Greater Dandenong home safer and sooner.

The Melbourne Metro rail tunnel is just a couple of years away. We saw how transformational the city loop was for our communities—the Melbourne Metro rail tunnel will take it to a new level. Then the Suburban Rail Loop is something that Victorians voted for. My community is so excited about that future vision to connect all major train lines—the Frankston line all the way through to Box Hill. It is truly extraordinary policy. We are really keen in my electorate to know the progress of those early works and how the Suburban Rail Loop will deliver those generational benefits and outcomes for the Mordialloc electorate.