Thursday, 30 October 2025

 Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (12:28): I am not going to take too long on this particular debate. We have got a fair bit to get through this afternoon, and I know there are many other speakers on this side of the house that would like to contribute to all of those bills. The Transport Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 gives me a chance to talk about once again public transport – or the lack thereof – in the great north-west of this state and to clear up a few things.

I have been banging on and banging on about the return of the passenger train to Mildura since I came into this place, and I will continue to do that. There has been a lot of talk, and I cop it from the other side all the time, saying that Kennett took it away in 1993. I want to clear up some misinformation. The overnight train, which was the Vinelander – the last time that ran was in 1993. The train that ran during the day was taken away by Labor in 1990. So that clears that up. We have not had a train for well over 30 years. I have been meeting with many stakeholders over the last few weeks, particularly in this place. I am not a train expert – the member for Bulleen is. I do enjoy our conversations until he really goes down the track – pun intended – with his expertise, and I have to glaze over.

Luba Grigorovitch: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I just want the speaker on her feet to be factual. The passenger train to Mildura was abolished by the Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett in 1993.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): That is not a point of order.

Jade BENHAM: If we are talking about facts, I will read you some facts. There is a photo posted online of the Sunraysia from Mildura after arrival at Melbourne’s Spencer Street station. That was in 1987. It commenced operations as a parallel road coach in 1987 and only ran for three years. It was withdrawn in 1990. The Vinelander, which was a sleeper carriage train, used the same carriage set. That was the one that ran for the last time in 1990. Now we have got that cleared up with facts, although facts certainly never get in the way of a good story for those on the other side.

I have been meeting with many stakeholders in the rail game and having many conversations. In fact it was the member for Bulleen that filled me in on a deeper history of the passenger train to Mildura. I met with the Rail Freight Alliance yesterday. I met with the Rail Revival Alliance last week, who the member for Bulleen and the member for Nepean, the shadow minister, also met with. The Northwest Rail Alliance, though, have not contacted me, despite launching a parliamentary petition. The Northwest Rail Alliance claim to be an apolitical organisation. Headed up by their president – a former deputy mayor and a former independent member in this place – they have launched a parliamentary petition, not via their local member, nor via any of the members for Northern Victoria in the other place, but by the member for Melbourne from the Greens. The former independent member has been a Labor candidate and an independent, she joined the Sex Party – or the Reason coalition – went back to being an independent and is now aligning herself with the Greens. It certainly appears to be an apolitical organisation.

A member interjected.

Jade BENHAM: She did her school days in Mildura. You could also say she is from Alice Springs. I just thought it would have been proper, maybe, to at least meet with your local MP, who is also doing a fair bit of campaigning to bring back the passenger train to Mildura.

Anyway, we are cooking up some plans, potentially, or at least some solutions, because you know what the best scenario is when someone comes to you with a problem? I love when people come to us with a problem but also offer a solution, not just political grandstanding. That is actually what the Rail Revival Alliance and the Rail Freight Alliance have done, so I thank them for their contribution, and we will keep those lines of communication open. I will be true to my word today and keep this contribution short.

 Meng Heang TAK (Clarinda) (12:34): I am delighted to rise today to make a contribution on the Transport Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. This is another important bill, one that will make changes to the Commercial Passenger Vehicle Industry Act 2017 and the Bus Safety Act 2009, as well as the Transport (Compliance and Miscellaneous) Act 1983. I commend the minister for bringing this bill forward and for all of the work that is happening across public and active transport. It has been a big, exciting month, with the announcement that the Metro Tunnel will be open in early December, which is fantastic news for my community, with hundreds of new services a week.

I had the great privilege of joining many of my colleagues here to see firsthand the Metro Tunnel train stations – the Arden train station, the State Library train station and the rest. The summer program means more than 240 extra services a week for passengers along the Cranbourne–Pakenham–Sunbury corridor, all running through the Metro Tunnel, in addition to the existing services. Then in February the overhaul of the entire Victorian train network and the integration of the Metro Tunnel into the wider transport network will mean more than 1000 new weekly train services. The Cranbourne and Pakenham lines will travel exclusively through the new tunnel. These lines are the backbone of our train system and will transform with 1000 new weekly services – a turn-up-and-go network on the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines. There is more to come, but I would just like to come back to this fantastic announcement and come back to the member for Laverton, who talked about Joe and what benefit it brings to Joe.

I would like to put on record, in terms of the tunnel, a story. Twenty years ago when I travelled from Springvale train station to Footscray to attend university at Victoria University it took at least 1½ hours, sometimes more if I missed a train. But now when I see the timetable, with the opening of the tunnel, for young Joe from Springvale travelling from Springvale station to Footscray to attend Victoria University would take only 40 minutes. Where it was 1½ hours 20 years ago, now young Joe can attend his class at university –

A member interjected.

Meng Heang TAK: Joe from Springvale – Joe and Mary. This is fantastic for my community and for many communities here. It is great for our community – the biggest transformation of the Melbourne rail network for more than 40 years, freeing up space to run more trains more often on more lines. It is also great news that from the day the Metro Tunnel opens in early December public transport in Victoria will be free for everyone everywhere every weekend until 1 February. This is another bit of fantastic news; I cannot wait. All of our trams, every bus, every Melbourne train for every passenger – it is a fantastic initiative and a great celebration of the opening of the Metro Tunnel. Thanks to Victorians for their patience while thousands worked to build it.

This great initiative builds on the free public transport announcements in the budget, which were extremely well received in my electorate. Cost of living is always front of mind in my community and for parents in Clarinda every dollar counts. Free public transport for every Victorian under 18, with savings of up to $755 per year per child, has been an extremely popular announcement and one that I was very proud of because it means cheaper school trips, more affordable weekends and it is one less thing for families to worry about. I am very proud that Victoria will be the first state to introduce free public transport for kids and teens from 1 January next year.

There is good news for our seniors, with statewide public transport free for Victorians aged 60 and over on weekends from 1 January 2026. I have been trying to get around to many of our seniors groups over the last few months just to check in and catch up but also to chat about free PT for seniors on weekends, the $100 power saving bonus and many other things. There has been a great response, I can tell you. We have the Evergreen Seniors Group coming in for a visit next sitting week. They are a fantastic local community group. President Ms Mary D’Silva and the wonderful committee, many of them are volunteer members and all of them are active in our community, do an amazing job supporting and celebrating our multicultural citizens in Keysborough and the surrounding area. I am really looking forward to that. They have been really excited about the public transport announcements. They toured the Metro Tunnel recently.

So there are some exciting announcements and changes in transport, and we have more change to come here today on public transport, regarding contactless payment with debit and credit cards. We have made changes to support the introduction of account-based ticketing technology in Victoria by amending the Transport (Compliance and Miscellaneous) Act 1983 to enable passengers to use new methods as valid entitlements to use public transport services. These require the introduction of new definitions and amendments to existing definitions and provide for the power to make regulations and publish notices for the purpose of supporting the introduction of account-based ticketing technology in Victoria. It is another exciting development and another step forward towards enabling public transport passengers to use the new method. I am looking forward to that technology. There are also amendments to the Transport (Compliance and Miscellaneous) Act 1983 to provide for prescribing of a computer system for the process for validating concession entitlements.

We have heard from colleagues here about the host of changes to the Commercial Passenger Vehicle Industry Act 2017. They are aimed at strengthening commercial passenger vehicle industry laws and improving industry transparency to address the issues the vehicle industry faces with overcharging and other driver misconduct. These are positive changes which include, here in this bill, again, a very positive change for passenger safety. This comes together with the requirement for Safe Transport Victoria to publish disciplinary action taken against industry participants on their public register as well as to strengthen the public care objective applicable to drivers to better reflect the standards and expectations of the community in relation to commercial passenger vehicles.

These are broad changes, positive changes, across three acts, changes that I am very happy to support to strengthen commercial vehicle industry laws and to improve industry transparency as well as to support the introduction of account-based ticketing technology here in Victoria. I commend the minister for bringing these amendments before the house today, and I commend her for the exciting work taking place in public and active transport here. I commend the bill to the house.

 Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (12:43): I rise to make a contribution on the Transport Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 and in doing so would like to talk a bit about the riveting topic of rail tickets, which feature quite a bit in this piece of legislation. Riveting topic as it is, with my father being a longstanding member of the Signalling Record Society I know, sadly, quite a bit about it. So you are about to get it – hang around!

Rail ticketing, as riveting as I know my colleagues from all sides of this chamber think it is, is a big deal. Of course it is a big deal, because it is not just about the revenue for the network and who is on the system and how your systems are devised in terms of the structure of them that sits behind it. It is obviously a very integral part of the system in terms of staff and collection and enforcement et cetera. For years and years and years we had the old paper tickets, which were from the old Edmondson ticket machines, and you stuck in a small ticket – which you will get if you go to Puffing Billy; you will see one of those – and that was the backbone of our network for about 100 years in rail ticketing. They moved into an electronic form in the early 1980s, late 1970s, in what was the new deal for country passengers, initiated by the Liberal government back in the late 1970s. This was the emergence of V/Line, with the tangerine-coloured carriages and the new N-Sets. There were refurbished locomotives as well as new locomotives that were to haul them with head-end power. So that started to revolutionise the change.

I am also very interested when Labor governments bring in stuff in relation to tickets, because I am old enough to remember scratch tickets.

Belinda Wilson: Pretty old.

Matthew GUY: I know it is, but when members opposite talk about previous governments, they seem to not want to talk about their own. They want to talk about the Kennett government, but they do not want to talk about the governments of theirs at the same time, so let me do that.

Scratch tickets were a monumental disaster. If you go to a newsagent today, you go in and you might win the 20 grand or you might match three rockets and get a free paddle-pop or something. But they were the days when the Labor government brought in that as the primary method of ticketing for Melbourne’s metropolitan rail network, and it was a financial disaster, it was an enforcement disaster – it was literally seen as a complete joke of a system. I went to a state government school. I did not get the train to school, but I know kids who went to private schools and who got the train from Montmorency station. They would look out for the guys who were always dressed in blue slacks and a grey jacket. They knew that was a transport enforcement officer, and they would scratch the date in. So fare evasion was massive. Then of course it had to be completely changed.

Belinda Wilson interjected.

Matthew GUY: I said I did not do that because I went to a state government school and I did not get the train to school. I rode my bike, and I came home and did a paper round. I still get the bus in. I do not see many other members on the bus with me in the morning, but that is another point. What I do know is that in the mid-1990s that system had to be cleaned up, and the Kennett government did clean it up. We brought in Metcard, and Metcard did clean the system up. We had to. We were losing tens of millions of dollars – and that is a lot of course in early 1990s money – to redo the system and bring in Metcard to actually bring it into what was then an analog technology system for digital payments. It was an electronic stripe, if you like. But that was the first stage of electronic ticketing in the metropolitan Melbourne system. It was modelled off a system that – with credit – I think the Unsworth government brought in in New South Wales in 1986 to 88. We brought in something similar a few years later because we had to pick up what was the disaster of scratch tickets. So we did do that, and Metcard was, for the time, quite successful.

Then of course we fast forward a little bit to, after the end of the Bracks government, the Brumby government, who then devised the Myki system, which is what we are still on the tail end of, if you like, today. I remember the press conference – in fact I was a member of Parliament – with the then Minister for Public Transport and the then Premier doing a presser. The machine – it is always terrible when you do these things at press conferences – broke apart, fell apart and hit the deck and splattered everywhere. It was great for the TV fodder; they loved it. What it did show was that the system was not ready – and it was not ready. We were told we would be able to buy a hot dog with our Myki and pay our car parking with our Myki. Unfortunately today you can hardly buy the ticket with it. The system was not ready, and it was hastily introduced for the 2010 election. It did not work, but it was brought in, and the system has been plagued with some faults ever since. Now we are getting told Myki cannot be developed for electronic ticketing like in Sydney or Brisbane or other cities – where I have indeed been with you, Acting Speaker Farnham – where we have used tap-on, tap-off technology. Some of those cities have used it for the best part of a decade.

This bill will now enable that technology to take place. While I would say it is 10, 12 years late, we do not oppose it, because we know that that system needs to be introduced not just to the Melbourne metropolitan network but statewide, particularly on our regional system and also the country network. Some would say, and I have noticed previous ministers say, ‘Melbourne’s ticketing structure is too complex to bring this system in because we’ve got trains, trams and buses.’ Well, that is not true, because Sydney has got trains, trams and buses. They have also got ferries, so Sydney has one extra mode than Melbourne does, and they have managed it for the best part of now 10 years. And Sydney’s heavy rail network is about the same size as the Melbourne rail network in kilometres and similar in station numbers but carries 50 per cent more people. You can say, ‘Well, yeah, topographically Sydney is a different city’ – it is. ‘It’s harder to get around’ – it can be. Maybe that is debateable today. But it carries 50 per cent more people, which has particularly spiked in the last 10 or so years, I believe because ticketing is so easy. It is easy to use. It is a very user-friendly system, and it has been for a long time.

When we had family come out some years ago from Eastern Europe, my parents took them out and they were going to get the train to the city. There were five of them; my parents had a Myki, but they needed to buy some Mykis. It was going to end up being something like $70 to buy Mykis, top them up to the minimum amount and then go into the city and come back. Well, what is the point? That is not ease of use and that is not attracting people to use your metropolitan rail network, that is actually a discouragement to using the rail network. So of course, what did they do? They drove.

You can find these examples, but what we should have had 10 or so years ago, I would argue, was adopt tap-on, tap-off technology, which has been trialled in Sydney and been a success and which has been implemented in Brisbane and has been a success. Rather than reinventing the wheel as this legislation does today, we should have worked with PT systems in other states to actually enable this into Melbourne’s public transport system, particularly coming out of COVID to encourage people to use the network to come back into the city in a user-friendly public transport system. That could have been, I would argue, much better for government revenue in terms of people using the network, ease of tapping on and off and also for V/Line. I am constantly in the north-east in southern New South Wales. One of my sons is always getting the train, and he prefers to get the XPT up and back because it is easier. The V/Line train, as the member for Benambra will tell you, with three carriages is full – 222 seats. It is a reduction from the five-car N-Set which had 380. But it is not just that; there is no Myki available up in the north-east, so it becomes a discouragement to using the system if you have to go into the New South Wales station to then buy a ticket from the Albury station to get back down into Victoria. So there are ways to make our system more user-friendly.

I talked about the XPT, and again, much maligned as the Liberals are, it was the Liberal Party that brought the XPT in after a decade of Labor promises in the mid 1990s. It was a Liberal government that upped rail passenger speeds in the mid-1990s for the first time since 1937 to 130 k’s an hour when Sprinters were brought in. It was a Liberal government that in the contracts in 1998 and then 1999, which were then in force when Steve Bracks came in, required rail passenger speeds to again go upwards to 160 kilometres an hour. It was the Labor government that scrapped the order for what were going to be the replacement to the N-Sets, which were R-Set carriages, to then look at a cheaper alternative, which was VLocities, to obtain 160 k-an-hour running.

I pick up the member for Mildura’s earlier point. There were two trains to Mildura; there was a day train and a sleeper train. In fact the day train was called the Sunraysia, and the sleeper train was called the Vinelander. The day train was removed by a Labor government. The night train, which was the Vinelander, was removed by a coalition government. But if we are going to come in here and talk about why these trains do not exist or work on the Mildura line, one cannot go past the track condition that deteriorated greatly from the new deal in the late 1970s to the early 1980s when the maximum rail passenger speeds on that line went from a constant 80 or 90 k’s an hour, in some stretches, down to as little as 40, particularly going north of Wycheproof. It is not feasible to run a passenger train at 40 kilometres an hour next to a road of 110 kilometres an hour – no-one is going to get it. So we need to look at infrastructure before we look at what is operating on that infrastructure.

We do not oppose this bill. I hope you enjoyed some discussion of rail ticketing. I am sure any member who would like to talk about rail ticketing is more than welcome to come and have that conversation, but I do not expect anyone to.

 Gary MAAS (Narre Warren South) (12:53): What a shame I did not buckle myself in before that contribution from the member for Bulleen. I too would like to make a somewhat truncated contribution to the Transport Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, speaking to the two major amendments in the bill, the amendments to taxis and ridesharing and those to the ticketing system. It all goes to show how this government is committed to delivering improvements that make sure that our state’s transport system is safe and that the amenities are up to date so that Victorians can keep moving and get to where they need to be faster and more safely.

As to those amendments in the taxi and the ridesharing industry, the bill will strengthen transparency within the taxi and rideshare industry to address fare overcharging as well as driver misconduct. Many of us rely upon taxis or rideshare to get around, and no-one should feel unsafe or uncomfortable when they are using these services.

While the majority of taxi or rideshare drivers do the right thing and are incredibly hardworking, as all workers in the gig economy are, some do not follow those rules, whether that is through rorting, scamming or abuse. Many in this chamber would know someone who has experienced overcharging in a taxi service or unfortunately has felt unsafe in rideshare as well. It is often some of the most vulnerable community members who utilise these services. That could be an older person or someone with a disability who relies on these services to get around each and every day, but parents as well who have teenage children. As a parent of two teenage girls, let us call them Mary and Daffodil, I know that those two teens, like many older teens or young adults, also use rideshare services. To make sure that they get home safely it is great to know that they have the ability to book a ride for someone else, or I can even keep track of their location, and it is really handy. What I do not like is the credit card statement that comes back to me at the end of that, but it is good to know that that can be tracked. It is not right that anyone, particularly those who use these services for safety and convenience reasons, is taken advantage of.

To protect users this bill amends the Commercial Passenger Vehicle Industry Act 2017 and will make the following changes. The bill allows for security cameras and specific recording devices to be installed in taxi and rideshare vehicles to record audio. Currently that lack of audio limits the evidence that the regulator and Victoria Police can gather when investigating a complaint or incident that occurs in a rideshare or taxi service. Importantly, this change will protect both drivers and passengers, and we know that it is not just passengers but drivers too who can experience issues within a trip, so this change assists in protecting their rights at work as well. The bill balances the need to improve the safety of Victorians with the rights of people’s privacy and puts strict safeguards in place to make sure the footage and the audio are protected from misuse.

Just a quick few words about the ticketing system – the bill really gets us moving on bringing the Myki system right up to date. It gives everyone the option to use credit and debit cards in place of Myki cards when travelling on public transport, and that really is an exciting change which will improve accessibility and usability for trains, trams and buses. It also means an easier trip for parents in my electorate, for instance, taking the kids if they are heading to the zoo or to see one of the many fabulous shows that we have in the city. It will mean that a student heading to TAFE on a local bus or someone heading to work in the city by train will not have to worry about finding a machine to top up their Myki card. Instead they can pay their way back by a quick tap of their credit card or their debit card, which many have on their phones as well. It will make it much easier for everyone, and we know that the Myki system is integral to guaranteeing we are all paying our way and travelling on the great public transport that runs smoothly and that is well maintained in Victoria.

The bill will introduce new definitions and amend existing definitions relevant to public transport ticketing offences, defences and evidentiary provisions. I know that my constituents in Narre Warren South are really excited to get to use the Metro Tunnel when that opens in early December. It will change the way that passengers utilise the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines and get them where they need to go faster than ever before. It will open up access to key precincts throughout the CBD and inner city through those five brand new stations.

I think I will conclude just by saying that this is an excellent bill and it represents the Victorian government’s continued commitment to improving access within our broader transport network, whether that is taxi or rideshare services or our public transport system. We want to make it safe, we want to make it reliable and we want to make it accessible for everyone to utilise. I commend the bill to the house.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:03 pm.

The SPEAKER: I would like to acknowledge in the gallery a delegation from the National Assembly of France: Pascale Got, Mereana Reid Arbelot and Emmanuel Fouquart.