Thursday, 18 March 2021

Ministers statements: level crossing removals

Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop) (11:12): On coming to government in 2014 we immediately set to work on the commitment the Andrews Labor government made, which was to then remove 50 dangerous and congested level crossings by the end of 2022.

Now, there were a few non-believers out there; a few people who said that this just could not be done. I know my colleagues want to know who said this—it was the former and future Leader of the Opposition, the member for Bulleen, who said this, and he made these comments in Frankston, of all places. As communities right along the Frankston line know very well, they have seen the removal of 11 level crossings already along the Frankston line, and work is underway right now on another seven dangerous and congested level crossings. Indeed 46 level crossings have been removed in total, and Victorians overwhelmingly supported our agenda, which was to increase the number of level crossings we are removing to 75 by 2025.

There were also some non-believers who tried to seize on the popularity of our level crossing removal program but added their own little twist—their own little flourish—to this transport policy. An alternative policy was to wind back the removal of level crossings and instead replace it with a 50 road intersection removals policy. We had a look at this policy. We assessed this policy, which would have put freeway-style interchanges in the suburbs, trenches and flyovers at the front doors of homes and businesses. We had a look at this alternative policy, and I can tell you, Speaker, that it was a complete stinker. It was so bad that it was a policy that the member for Bulleen as Leader of the Opposition never spoke about again. But we will keep speaking about it because it is such poor policy to stop our program of removing dangerous and congested level crossings, and we will continue with that agenda.