Tuesday, 15 October 2024

 Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (19:00): (851) It is an important issue I want to raise tonight for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and it is in relation to buses at Bulleen Plaza shopping centre on Grant Olson Avenue. Bulleen Plaza is one of those old suburban shopping centres, community shopping centres, that has got so many people that use it as just their local community hub. It is not a Westfield; it is not like Fountain Gate, Southland or Shoppingtown up in Doncaster. It is, as I said, like a community centre. People go down there for medical reasons; there are medical hubs down there. There is a Coles down there. My office was there for some years. Particularly for what is an older demographic in the suburb of Bulleen, it is so much a community precinct. A lot of the Greek senior citizens will come down, play cards and use it as a place to meet, but what it is lacking is proper and active bus facilities for people to get on and off at Bulleen Plaza.

As I have said, I have been down there many times. For many years I was in Bulleen Plaza in my office, and what we always noticed was – unlike, say, the Pines, which is in Doncaster East up the road, or even at Macedon Square – there is no proper covered facility for bus usage there. What is amazing is that less than a k down the road this North East Link Project is being built and yet they cannot even upgrade the facilities at Bulleen Plaza before they do that. The Bulleen park-and-ride has been built, which very few people use, but you do not have any upgrades in a place people do use, which is the Bulleen shopping centre.

Bulleen itself is used by a lot of, as I said, the Italian and Greek community in the area. If my old Ukrainian grandmother was still alive, she would say of the Labor government: Я не знаю – те мокра курка! They are a pack of wet chooks; just hurry up and do it. And why wouldn’t they do it? Because it is a community centre, a community facility, a location where people go, and I think it just needs the bus shelter to be rebuilt in a proper and sensible way. Once it is covered they might lose six car parks, but centre management and I are keen to make sure that we get a new facility there. The Labor government need not be wet chooks. Can the Minister for Transport Infrastructure please upgrade the bus facility at Bulleen Plaza shopping centre on Grant Olson Avenue to have a covered facility for the route 280 and 282 buses to use.