Tuesday, 2 December 2025

 Danny PEARSON (Essendon – Minister for Economic Growth and Jobs, Minister for Finance) (14:24): It is great to be here, and I am delighted to update the house on the exquisite Metro Tunnel project and some of the wonderful businesses along the corridor. Sunday was a truly momentous day in the history of this state. More than 70,000 people rode the Metro Tunnel on opening day. I know most of those opposite certainly did not, but I thought I would give them all a bit of a tour of some of the incredible businesses that are thriving and prospering along the Metro Tunnel corridor. We are going to start the journey at Arden station, where right down the road is Reeves Envico, which is delivering infrastructure that secures clean water and building climate-resilient facilities across the Pacific and was named Victoria’s 2025 exporter of the year. Next is my favourite Metro Tunnel station. We all have one, and for me it is Parkville and our world-renowned Parkville precinct producing world-class research that is transforming the lives of Victorians every single day.

Then you are just a few minutes away from the spectacular State Library station, and around the corner you will see HEX, an ed tech startup shaping Victoria’s digital future and empowering the next generation of founders, and Victoria’s international education and training exporter for 2025. A quick trip through the tunnel and you get to Town Hall station, where you can visit nearby Fluence, which my friend the Minister for Energy and Resources and I visited earlier this year – a global leader in grid-scale battery energy storage systems. Fluence has chosen to grow its footprint here, creating more highly skilled jobs for Victorians, supported by the Victorian government. The final stop of the tour is the beautiful Anzac station. Close by you will find two wonderful Victorian export award winners for 2025: NATPAT in the e-commerce category and Aquatech for sustainability and the green economy.

The Metro Tunnel is so much more than a transport link, it is a massive productivity booster – it is massive. While those opposite called it a waste and they called it a hoax, we know that it is a project that will define Victoria’s future. We went at it alone, we funded it, we built it, and now we have opened it so Victorians will be able to reap the benefits.