Tuesday, 12 May 2026

 Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (19:09): (1651) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Public and Active Transport, and the action I seek is for the minister to undertake an urgent review into the treatment and care of vulnerable passengers travelling on replacement V/Line coach services and to urgently implement recommendations to ensure what I am about to tell you never happens again. This action follows the deeply concerning experience of Mildura resident 84-year-old Ms Kris Thornton as reported in the Sunny Daily on 3 May. Ms Thornton had planned to travel from Mildura to Melbourne on 18 March, expecting the usual arrangement of coach transfer to rail at Swan Hill. Instead upon arrival she was informed the entire journey would be conducted by bus – no proper notice, no preparation, no consideration. Apparently V/Line reported that a text message was sent, but a text message to an 84-year-old woman is perhaps not the best form of communication.

Ms Thornton is 84 years old and walks with the assistance of a walking stick. She had packed and prepared for a train journey believing that there would be a catering carriage on said train. Instead she was placed on the coach for what became approximately nine hours in transit with a 10-minute toilet stop for food in Bendigo. Consider that for an 84-year-old woman who is mobility impaired travelling alone: a nine-hour bus trip. Somehow someone thought that this was a sufficient duty of care. She did ask for extended time in Bendigo to make sure she could get something to eat after only having a light breakfast, but that was not accommodated. This is not sufficient for vulnerable Victorians and certainly not for regional communities already enduring some of the longest public transport journeys in the state. Ms Thornton has explained that there was no allowance, as I said, for passengers to adequately access food and drink. This trip for Ms Thornton turned into an eight-day stay in hospital once she arrived in Melbourne. She arrived dehydrated with low blood sugar levels and had to be hospitalised for eight days – disgraceful. For V/Line to say ‘We’re sorry – thoughts and prayers’ is disgusting. What I am asking for is an urgent review into this case and any recommendations from that review to be urgently implemented so that no Victorian has to suffer this kind of treatment ever again.