Thursday, 31 October 2019
Questions without notice and ministers statements
Ministers statements: Metro Tunnel
Ministers statements: Metro Tunnel
The SPEAKER: On a ministers statement, I call the Premier.
Mr ANDREWS: No, no, we are just getting started. Be in no doubt about that. We are just getting started.
Members interjecting.
The SPEAKER: Order! I warn the member for Warrandyte.
Mr ANDREWS: I was very pleased to be down at the Metro Tunnel site today, a tunnel with some light at the end of it, unlike the tunnels that other people are occupying at the moment—very dark, very deep and no good end in sight. More trains—
Mr M O’Brien: You are just a train wreck.
Members interjecting.
Mr ANDREWS: Boom, boom! There you go. Goodness me. I would stick to your points of order, if I was you.
To be really clear, we are getting on and delivering this project, a project that some talked about and did nothing to deliver—they mothballed it in fact. We are delivering this project: 7000 jobs; a turn-up-and-go public transport system, no timetable required; the busiest line taken out of the city loop; and every other suburban train line benefiting because of it. This is a massive project, and one that is being delivered by a government that knows how to deliver infrastructure projects and has not wasted a moment doing so.
To be very clear, we are continuing to push ahead. The two tunnel boring machines have been launched. The first of them, Joan, has covered some 250 metres. Meg is around 50 metres into that important work. They will be through to the other side in the early part of next year and will complete their work later in 2020.
This is a critically important project. Without this project and our resolve to get it done you cannot run more trains more often, you cannot make our growth into an advantage for the future. In other words, you cannot sit around doing nothing, wasting the opportunities you are given. That is not our way.
The SPEAKER: Just before calling the member for South-West Coast, I want to acknowledge in the gallery today that we have two guests from the New South Wales Parliament: Sonia Hornery, MP, the member for Wallsend, and Sophie Cotsis, MP, a shadow minister in the NSW Parliament. Welcome to the Parliament of Victoria.