Tuesday, 20 May 2025

Werribee electorate ministerial visits

John LISTER (Werribee) (14:37): I have been clear to my community that I would work in government to fight for our community, and during the break I welcomed many ministers to Werribee to talk about what matters to our community. This is one of the advantages I have as a Labor member for our seat. Community safety is a priority for me, and our reforms and investments in police locally are helping to address youth crime. The Minister for Police joined my Wyndham MP colleagues and me at the Werribee police complex to speak to the youth crime taskforce and proactive policing unit. While there are still challenges that we will support police to address, we are seeing amazing results from these teams, working with community leaders to prevent crime and reduce re-offending. On behalf of the Wyndham community we thank them for their hard work.

We have been clear that we also need more local roads to reduce local congestion, which is why the member for Tarneit and I have been successful in our advocacy for a new bridge between Wyndham Vale and Tarneit. We welcomed the Minister for Transport Infrastructure for a tour of our Wyndham ring-road sites and look forward to working with the federal Labor government and local councils to deliver this project. This is going to be a game changer, reducing reliance on Heaths Road and Ballan Road in my community.

Finally, we know people are doing it tough, which is why financial counselling is so important. Thank you to the Minister for Consumer Affairs for coming to Werribee to meet with one of the agencies that has been funded for financial counselling for Victorian communities. Thank you to my Labor colleagues for their hard work.