Tuesday, 17 June 2025

 Alison MARCHANT (Bellarine) (19:08): (1184) In this year’s 2025–26 state budget a regional bus network review was announced, and the action I seek is for the Minister for Public and Active Transport to provide an update on how this review will specifically benefit communities across the Bellarine Peninsula. I hear often from Bellarine constituents and the communities that the Bellarine bus service – and it is the only public transport service we have on the Bellarine – is not meeting the needs of the community. We are growing, our demographics are changing and we do need a service that supports a more efficient service for our communities. It was also recently announced in that budget that from January next year children and young people under the age of 18 will be able to travel free on public transport. This is welcome news for families, reducing the cost of travel and improving accessibility for young people to independently go to their work, school or social activities, and this builds on another announcement that the Victorian Seniors Card holders will also have expanded access to free weekend travel across the state, alongside their continued weekday discounts.

While both of those initiatives are really excellent and important cost-of-living pressure initiatives, there does remain a gap on the Bellarine in connecting our communities, particularly across the Bellarine – like a connecting, cross-Bellarine service. Young people do reach out to me. They talk about getting to work and going to their sports. Residents are wanting to attend medical appointments. They may not be travelling into Geelong to catch a train; they are trying to just connect across the Bellarine. This is vital to improving our connectivity, mobility and inclusion. Our regional bus network review and our Bellarine review present a really valuable opportunity for the community to reshape our transport system and also to have a say on what their needs are and better support our community, so I look forward to hearing from the minister on how this review will help address those transport challenges that we have across the Bellarine electorate.