Wednesday, 19 November 2025

 Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:11): It has been a big, big week for building for the future of this great state. We have the Metro Tunnel opening earlier, on 30 November, which is the biggest upgrade to our rail network in more than 40 years – five new stations, faster services. Also, across the road in the West Gate Tunnel, tens of thousands of people and families walked through for the first time on Sunday, celebrating a project that will take trucks off local roads and give us that long-talked-about alternative to the West Gate Bridge. Then of course there is the Suburban Rail Loop – a much-needed project for the growth of our city and state, a project that delivers homes, jobs and services and a project that has the backing from the Prime Minister, confirming additional federal funding for this much-needed project.

These projects are all about one thing: giving Victorians time – time not lost in traffic, time not swallowed up by long commutes, time spent with their families and those that they love. Work from home is built on that same idea too. It is about work fitting in around life and giving parents, particularly women, the flexibility that they need to stay in work. And while we are building a city and state for working people and families, there are some who want to drag us backwards and drag Victoria backwards – more concerned with the bosses in the boardroom than the workers in the tearoom, backed by colleagues who called working from home ‘professional apartheid’. That tells you just how out of touch and out of date these people are – out to make life harder for working people by cutting the sorts of projects our city and state need, like the Suburban Rail Loop. I am focused on building an economy that works for working people and families, with the infrastructure, conditions and flexibility that they deserve.