Wednesday, 18 March 2026

 Gabrielle WILLIAMS (Dandenong – Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for Public and Active Transport) (14:24): The Allan Labor government is committed to delivering new housing and creating new transport connections along with it. Some in this place want to supercharge urban sprawl without a plan to create communities that people want to live in and without building, for example, the public transport connections or the schools or the hospitals that support local families. On this side of the house we are focused on delivering homes closer to amenities that support livability while also boosting services for those communities. We have added more than 24,000 bus services that operate each week and over 3500 extra train services across metro and regional Victoria. We have delivered the Metro Tunnel, connecting parts of our city to rail for the very first time and boosting connections to major hospitals and major universities in our city as well. The West Gate Tunnel is slashing travel times for people in Melbourne’s outer west and taking thousands of trucks off local roads in Melbourne’s inner west, improving livability.

Some political parties have an $11 billion black hole and are publicly committing to cuts. Those political parties are telling Victorians loud and clear that they intend to forever push people out to the urban fringes, with no intention of delivering the transport connections, the schools, the hospitals and the early childhood centres that families rely on. Some political parties have a policy position that is effectively ‘Out of sight, out of mind’. They are telling Victorians that if you cannot afford to live in Brighton or you cannot afford to live in Kew then you are on your own.