Tuesday, 14 October 2025
Questions without notice and ministers statements
Ministers statements: Metro Tunnel
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Table of contents
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Bills
- Domestic Building Contracts Amendment Bill 2025
- Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Medication Administration in Residential Aged Care) Bill 2025
- Building Legislation Amendment (Fairer Payments on Jobsites and Other Matters) Bill 2025
- Parks and Public Land Legislation Amendment (Central West and Other Matters) Bill 2025
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Bills
- Domestic Building Contracts Amendment Bill 2025
- Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Medication Administration in Residential Aged Care) Bill 2025
- Building Legislation Amendment (Fairer Payments on Jobsites and Other Matters) Bill 2025
- Parks and Public Land Legislation Amendment (Central West and Other Matters) Bill 2025
Please do not quote
Proof only
Ministers statements: Metro Tunnel
Gabrielle WILLIAMS (Dandenong – Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for Public and Active Transport) (14:19): Victorians have waited patiently as the Metro Tunnel has taken shape beneath their very feet. Behind worksite walls, under our streets, thousands of Victorian workers have been building five brand new, state-of-the-art stations and twin 9-kilometre tunnels. While Victorians have been patient, they will not need to be patient any longer. Last week the Premier and I announced that the Allan Labor government will be opening the Metro Tunnel with a summer start in early December, a full year ahead of schedule.
This project is so important because it allows us to deliver services across our network for generations to come. It gives Victorians more ways to move, and during the summer start we are saying thank you to Victoria with free public transport every weekend. Once the Metro Tunnel opens, every tram, every bus and every train across metropolitan and regional Victoria will be free, from the first service each Saturday to the last service each Sunday, for everyone. We will run 240 extra services each week over the summer so that Victorians can get to know those brand new stations and also get to better understand their new journeys. Then from 1 February we will make the big switch, overhauling the public transport timetable and running more than 1000 extra services every single week, all of this made possible by the Metro Tunnel project.
That is just the beginning, because soon after there will be extra services being rolled out on the Upfield line, on the Craigieburn line, on the Werribee line and on the Sandringham line. We will be able to keep doing that now for generations to come because of the Metro Tunnel project. Those opposite called this project a hoax. They turned their back on Victorians. By refusing to plan for the future they committed to sending Victoria backwards. They would get rid of colour TV if they could. But Labor governments build not just infrastructure, but opportunity.