Tuesday, 18 February 2020

Baxter rail extension

Mr EDBROOKE (Frankston) (13:42): In October 2019 the Victorian state government completed and handed to the federal government a business case into the electrification and duplication of the metro train line to Baxter, on time and on budget.

Whilst prior to the federal election the federal government and their community stakeholders seemed in a hurry, the train plan has ground to a halt and we are hearing nothing, so the question is: what are they hiding? To date, almost four months on, this business case has not been released to the public, notwithstanding the significant amount of interest in my community in the report.

We have seen a sustained period of strong advocacy from both Frankston council and Mornington council, together with the Committee for Greater Frankston, calling for the public release of the entire Baxter electrification and duplication business case, but to no avail.

Despite advice from an electorate-wide mail-out that construction would commence in 2019, without a business case or funding; the Prime Minister’s strong support for the extension during his visits in May 2018 and November 2019; and even a senator visiting last year stating he would ‘not let this rest’, all we hear is silence, and the construction of the project is at a standstill until the federal government releases this business case to our community.

This week I have written a letter to the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure to ask them to release the full Baxter electrification and duplication business case publicly so our community can look forward to building on the Victorian state government’s transformative Metro Tunnel project and the $3 billion of upgrades on the Frankston line, that include prepping the Frankston station for this project. I look forward to a prompt response to rule out the growing fear in my community that they have been promised the world and delivered nothing, with the full business case remaining hidden forever.