Ministers statements: Suburban Rail Loop
Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop) (14:04): On Tuesday it was a pleasure to be in Burwood with the member for Ashwood at, can I say, the future launch site of the tunnel-boring machine for the Suburban Rail Loop, where we announced the preferred contractor for the first tunnelling package from Cheltenham to Box Hill. And what a great announcement that was. We have already got early works underway. Eight-hundred jobs are supported on early works, including those that we saw at Burwood on Tuesday morning. We are announcing we are now going to the next stage – major works – with the first 16-kilometre tunnelling package being awarded to the preferred consortia led by CPB. On top of those 800 jobs there will be thousands and thousands more Victorians employed on this critically important project. Victorians know this project is important because they voted for it twice. Twice Victorians have voted to support the project, and we have been very, very clear in turn with the Victorian community that we will build it. We will build this important project.
Others, however, have been a little less clear. Some described last November’s election as a referendum on the Suburban Rail Loop. Those people who made that claim lost the election. But guess what, they still do not accept that result because they continue to oppose the Suburban Rail Loop. They continue to oppose the project and continue to oppose the verdict of the Victorian people. Most critically they oppose the thousands and thousands of workers who are employed now and who will be employed into the future and oppose the vital connection that this will provide, from Cheltenham to Box Hill to Burwood to Glen Waverley to Clayton to Monash – vital connections for the community for the years ahead.