Wednesday, 14 August 2024

 Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (19:00): (771) My matter tonight is to the Minister for Public and Active Transport and concerns express train services on the Hurstbridge railway line. The reason the member for Bulleen would raise this is of course that we are in the City of Manningham, the only municipality in Melbourne without trams or trains, and as a consequence people in the electorate of Bulleen will frequently use either Heidelberg station, if they are at the Bulleen end of the electorate, or my family, who are at the Templestowe end, will use Montmorency station. Therefore what occurs on the Hurstbridge line, which impacts of course the City of Banyule and the Shire of Nillumbik, directly relates to our access to the city.

Having grown up in Montmorency, I know exactly about the Hurstbridge line and what it used to have for many, many decades, which was express services, particularly in the morning. The morning peak was not just express from Clifton Hill to Jolimont – which it was for many, many years, but recently under this government that has been abolished and it now stops at all those stations, such as West Richmond, North Richmond and Victoria Park – but also had express services which used to run to Heidelberg and then express to Ivanhoe and then express from Ivanhoe to Clifton Hill. Those services have now been abolished, and that of course adds time to the morning peak timetable, which then means there are people at the back end of the line in terms of geography – the northern end of the line, from Greensborough North and Heidelberg North – and the minister at the table, the Minister for Development Victoria, representing Bundoora, would be well aware of this. People who are getting on at Rosanna or at Macleod or at Watsonia had an express service in the morning, but they have now been scrapped. My action tonight for the minister for public transport is to reinstate those express services on the Hurstbridge line, particularly on the weekends but also in peak times.