Thursday, 2 May 2019

Bills

Major Transport Projects Facilitation Amendment Bill 2019

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms PULFORD:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (10:59): I am pleased to make a contribution to the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Amendment Bill 2019. It is a bill that facilitates allegedly earlier engagement with utilities by project authorities in relation to utility infrastructure in declared projects. It claims to facilitate the negotiation of utility agreements between the project authorities. The opposition will not oppose this bill, but we will ask some questions of the minister in committee and we will seek to clarify certain aspects of the bill and some matters around the declaration process.

The bill seeks to reflect practices that have built up of enabling utility negotiations to commence earlier with major projects. I put on record our support for the objective of the bill, which is to move these projects more quickly and smooth through some of the processes. Whether it achieves the objectives is the question, and whether it does it in a suitable way is another question.

The bill amends part 7 of the act to bring forward when the utilities regime can commence. The utilities regime formally comes into effect after the planning phase, when the project approvals have been granted and the project area has been determined. The amendment removes the requirement for the project area to be determined and instead enables the use of the utility regime when the project is declared to be a major transport project under the act.

This act, for the record and for the house, is a 2009 Brumby government act. It was not opposed but was supported by us in principle at the time. It was used in government by the coalition and it has been used extensively by this government. We have some questions about the way that they are using this act now, but the principle of an integrated act that allows the declaration of a project and a series of steps to assess the project and to give appropriate powers is one that we agree with. It needs to be applied sensitively and sensibly and it needs to be an approach that does not short-circuit the ability of the community to have its input. It needs to be a process also that ensures that those that are impacted—whether they be home owners, businesses or, in this case, utility providers of various types—are dealt with fairly and are dealt with in a way that does not circumscribe their legitimate rights unfairly or unnecessarily and that the government in fact errs on the side of being fairer rather than riding roughshod over the rights of either the community or local businesses or indeed those who have interests through the utility provision that they provide into a particular area.

The act requires the project authority to give every utility company notice. The government argues that this is an unnecessary burden as some utilities have infrastructure in only limited geographic areas. The government posits I think a more efficient approach for all parties to require the project authority to take ‘all reasonable steps’—there will be a question about what that means—to identify all utility infrastructure that may be affected by the project and engage with those utilities which the project authority believes may be affected by a declared project. This amendment is presented as removing redundant work for both the project authority and the unaffected utility companies.

There is a question of time lines. The bill also changes the negotiation process by reducing the prescription around notification and negotiation time lines. I will be looking for the government to indicate that it is intending to act fairly with the various utility groups, because the onus is on government to do the work and do the work ahead of time but also to act within a reasonable framework.

The bill claims to be reducing the risk of unnotified infrastructure. Currently if the utility companies fail to respond within 30 business days to a notice issued by the project authority then the utility infrastructure is deemed to be unnotified infrastructure. There is no option for the project authority to provide more time. The amendments will give the project authority discretion to provide more time for utilities to comply. That is a welcome step. Sometimes there is significant complexity in these matters and sometimes it is true that it is not clear what structures are in a particular area—historical structures, whether they be pipelines or some other utility—and it is a matter that there needs to be a little bit of flexibility on.

Unnotified utility infrastructure could result in significant costs to utility providers and ultimately their customers, so any impact that is posited onto the utility providers is not a cost-free outing for the community. Costs that are landed on utility providers ultimately find their way through to greater costs for consumers, whether they be businesses or householders, of those utility services.

‘Unnotified utility infrastructure’ is defined in the bill as:

… utility infrastructure, the location of which is not known by the project authority, because it could not be identified even after taking all reasonable steps or because the utility failed to respond to a notice within 30 business days …

Utility infrastructure incorrectly described or its location incorrectly given also fits this description.

The Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act 2009 describes ‘utility’ as:

… an entity (whether publicly or privately owned) that provides, or intends to provide, water, sewerage, drainage, gas, electricity or other like services under the authority of an Act of Victoria …

‘Utility infrastructure’ means:

… any part of the supply, distribution or reticulation network owned, operated or controlled by a utility, including poles, pipes, cables, wires, conduits and tunnels …

and so forth.

Will the act provide for earlier dispute resolution if agreement cannot be reached? Well, that would be a good outcome, and I guess when the bill is passed we will actually see what happens, but that is the claimed intention. The bill enables either party to trigger the dispute resolution process within the period by notifying the other party that a dispute exists. This is designed to avoid unnecessary delays in circumstances where all reasonable endeavours to negotiate resolutions acceptable to both parties have been undertaken but agreement cannot at that point be reached. The government’s argument is that negotiated agreement is always preferable—and I agree with that—to a determination by a third party, but if there is a stalemate there is no reason for the parties to wait for the clock to run down. So there is a legitimate point here, I think.

There are a number of issues. While early negotiation is in fact supported by everyone there is a risk that government will use the provisions inserted in the bill as a big stick to threaten utility providers and force government projects on them no matter what the cost or impact on that utility infrastructure owner is. This is really about the fairness of the way this operates, again noting that costs incurred by utility providers are not cost-free to the community, because they ultimately do get passed through into costs for consumers, whether they be businesses or households.

Resourcing is provided by the project authority—in the case of the North East Link, which was a case study in discussion at the briefing, and I thank the minister for the briefing for the opposition—to utility services providers to identify all utility infrastructure that may be affected by the project and identified by government as a feature of the utility’s regime for all future major transport projects. It appears to have been not opposed by the utility providers, and certainly the ones that I spoke to and the industry bodies I checked with are not opposed to these changes in this bill.

There are a number of questions that I do have around the use of the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act, and I want to put these on record. Before I do that, I want to look at Alert Digest No. 4 of the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee. SARC, as I have indicated for a long time, is weak on property rights and weak on looking at these things closely. It seems to me we are, through this bill—and, arguably, appropriately—altering the balance between the property rights of various utility holders and the government. I am not arguing against that, but I am just arguing that it does in fact do that. I do not think the charter issues of property rights are picked up routinely strongly enough by the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee—and I see Mr Barton nodding; he has heard me say this before. What it says at page 1 of the Alert Digest on this bill is:

Charter issues:

The Major Transport Projects Facilitation Amendment Bill 2019 is compatible with the rights set out in the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.

We know that the charter is weak on a number of property rights issues, but it is implausible to argue that shifting the balance in this sort of bill does not impinge on property rights. It is just not true. It is the case that it might be legitimate, but let us not say that there is nothing there and it is not going to impact on anyone’s property rights. The charter does deal, however inadequately, with property rights in its respective clauses. But it is not correct, as SARC has tried to outline here, that there are no impacts whatsoever. I think SARC needs in a longer term mode—and this bill is probably not the exemplar—to look at these property rights issues more closely rather than brushing them away.

What I do want to say about the use of this act is that the government has now taken to using the act in a way that is not in the spirit in which it was intended. I remember the bill going through the house originally, as Mr Jennings and others also will. From a cursory glance at the table of contents of the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act you will see there are sections that allow assessment committees and proper community engagement, the establishment of panels and a more fulsome assessment process. That, I would argue, is an important component of the act. The government has taken now routinely to declaring a project—that is the Premier’s responsibility—but only declaring parts of the act, and essentially it has taken to declaring the nasty, tough parts of the act, the teeth in the act. It has stopped, it seems, declaring the use of assessment panels, investigatory panels and better community engagement models that are laid out within, particularly, part 3 and part 8 of the act.

The government’s current mode is to declare the tough bits—the sticks, the thumping bits, the bits that override communities, the bits that override councils, the bits that force things forward and give the government unbridled power—but it is not declaring parts 3 and 8 of the act. We have seen this as recently as just over a month ago in the case of the Toorak Road level crossing. That is a level crossing removal that is in principle supported by everyone. Everyone recognises its importance, but the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act 2009 process has seen that declared project allocated to Minister Allan as the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, but again in that case the Premier has not declared parts 3 and 8 of the act and there has been no legitimate and satisfactory consultation with the local community.

The local councils have been lumped with this and told to comment around the edges. Stonnington, to its credit, has been quite direct and has said that it much prefers a rail-under-road solution, and the Premier told them to get nicked. Subsequent to that they have engaged with the government to try to do some constructive work to get some useful changes. Boroondara has put submissions to the LXRP—the Level Crossing Removal Project. But all of this is late in the piece. All of this is separate from the community. All of this is council officers scrambling on very tight deadlines to be able to make those submissions, and I pay tribute to the council officers who have sought to do that on behalf of their communities.

I note the councillors at the City of Stonnington have been very clear in their opposition—not all, but some. I want to put on record the thanks of the community to those who have been clear and for those motions that have said, ‘Actually, we want the level crossing removed, but we want it done with a rail-under-road solution’. But my point here is that the use of this act is giving the government the leverage and the teeth to do many of these things without the proper engagement. The government appears in this case—and I am using this in a sense as a case study of the application of this act—to have declared the project and made an incomplete declaration, as it were, of the act, but it appears that it will also use the Planning and Environment Act 1987 to do whatever planning changes the minister from his high and mighty position deems to be appropriate, with again the sort of inadequate community input that has occurred here.

There has been no panel, there has been no process and there has been no proper community engagement. The Premier in effect has told the community and the councils to, ‘Just suck it up and off you go. You do what you’re told. You’re not putting any money into it’—I think he said—‘and therefore we do not want you to bother us’.

I do note that the federal government has put significant money into the announcement regarding the Glenferrie Road crossing. I note that they have put money forward for the commencement of an examination of Madden Grove, which is clearly a level crossing that will need to be removed. That will have significant impact on traffic movements across the Yarra and through those linkages to the freeway, and it will obviously impact both the Belgrave and Lilydale railway lines, including Camberwell, and also the Glen Waverley line. It is one of those crossings that has huge impact, and there is also a tramline quite close to it there which is impacted too.

The federal government announcement is also relevant in terms of Tooronga Road and says that is something that should be done. In a sense I am using this Toorak Road crossing as a case study here of the government’s shoddy approach and shoddy planning and its failure to integrate in a fulsome way with a proper approach to land use planning overall. It would be much better if the government had an integrated approach to rail under road through Tooronga Road, Glenferrie Road and Toorak Road. We would actually get a better land use outcome. We would get better removals of crossings.

There are major impacts on schools. Auburn Primary School, Auburn High School and Bialik College are impacted. They have certainly written to me and others about those matters, and I have raised those matters in the chamber on a number of occasions. They see the importance of removing the Tooronga crossing, and that is a legitimate point that they are making. If they did a triplet of these, it would be a much better outcome. There is no reason why that could not occur. The government did that in the case of Ormond, Bentleigh and McKinnon. It was a rail-under-road solution there. There was a line closure, but the outcome has been much better and the community are much more supportive of that outcome in the long term. Again, it was not excessively long. It was something that worked well in the end.

In conclusion, I want to draw the house’s attention to issues around the use of the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Amendment Bill 2019 more generally. We need to stocktake carefully the way the government is using this bill, and we need to look for opportunities to improve the fairness of its application. We need to make sure that the objectives of smooth and fast infrastructure provision are not compromised, but we need to do that, and I think we are capable of doing that, in a way that enables fast movement of infrastructure projects but actually has that early community engagement. Just like the government is talking about engagement with the infrastructure stakeholders earlier, the government ought to be talking about engagement with local communities earlier and more constructively rather than presenting them with a fait accompli and telling them, ‘We will now consult with you on the colour of the paint on the outside of the infrastructure that we are going to build’.

It should not be beyond a modern, sophisticated city like Melbourne to build infrastructure and to do it in a way that actually gets the best long-term outcomes, such as the protection of heritage and getting the best land use outcomes. I am not opposed to constructive, properly thought through value-capture propositions, but I am not in favour of just milking a community through a layer of taxes. That should all be thought through very, very carefully.

The government has taken some of the previous coalition’s projects in this area, including—on the very line I was talking about—the Burke Road level crossing removal. That was a good outcome that fundamentally completed the coalition’s project and added a value-capture component over to the side. Arguably we could have got an even better outcome in that circumstance as well, but I do not think we are going to get the best outcome in the current government proposals for Toorak Road.

I pay tribute to the many local community groups that have been prepared to fight for their local communities. With the CD9 level crossing removal the Caulfield-Murrumbeena-Hughesdale community fought very hard to get a better outcome, but this government was deaf to a better outcome and deaf to their concerns; it ploughed on and did not listen. If you go down there now you can see the outcome and it is less than ideal: the graffiti is significant and the undercroft of the elevated rail is not the outcome that you would want.

Equally the government has been deaf in locations like Eel Race Road. I have had significant representation from people in and around Eel Race Road about the government’s claim that it is removing the level crossing there. It is actually just a closure. They are just closing that crossing and the community will be, to a significant extent, landlocked and unable to get out easily and smoothly from their homes, and indeed some of the schools and so forth will be impacted as well. This is a government that is just bent on an outcome, and we do not hear about whatever processes are occurring internally within the government.

I will be asking the minister when we can expect some of the documents that have been sought on the elevated rail proposal at Toorak Road. The chamber has passed a motion, and we still do not have a satisfactory response from government. In the interests of transparency and openness the government should provide that information to the community. I will be asking some of those questions in committee later.

Ms TAYLOR (Southern Metropolitan) (11:23): Before proceeding I would like to address a couple of points that were raised by Mr Davis. I would like to focus primarily on this bill, because I think that is what we are here to talk about today rather than going on rather peculiar tangents. Firstly, the bill does not change the rights of utility providers; it is really about protecting best practice. That is actually what the major project authority and utility providers actually do right now, because best practice in 2009 is not best practice now—it is an evolving space, as one would expect. So it makes good sense for the government to make these amendments at this point in time.

I would also like to pick up on what I feel is an unfair criticism of the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee. I happen to be on SARC, and I would like to say formally on the public record that SARC operates with the utmost objectivity. It is truly representative: it has Labor and Liberal members and we all have a say. We are not trying to play tricks or anything there, we are just trying to do our job and ensure that the bills reflect the central tenets of the charter. Just because Mr Davis does not agree with a SARC decision does not mean it is wrong; it is perhaps just inconvenient for him in the chamber right now. I think that he might want to be careful in the future about sledging SARC, because I take offence to that. I put my best endeavours in there, as I believe all the other members of SARC do as well. I am sorry that it is inconvenient for you when it makes a decision that you do not agree with.

I am very pleased he raised the topic of level crossings. Having driven through both Murrumbeena and Carnegie I know that people love that these level crossings have been removed. It saves so much time. It is so annoying with the ‘Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding’ over and over and over again. For 20 minutes it goes on and on and on—believe me. I am not sure if Mr Davis has actually driven through Murrumbeena and realised just how terrific it is now. It is better because it is much safer. That was the fundamental tenet and reason for removing that level crossing, but it has also improved traffic flow and reduced congestion. I can say that in that community—and I am sure the member for Oakleigh, Mr Dimopoulos, would also agree—people have not been complaining, ‘Oh dear, you’ve removed that terrible level crossing’. They have said, ‘Thank you for removing that dangerous level crossing; that is a gift to the community’. So thank you for referring to the tremendous work that the Andrews Labor government has undertaken with regard to removing 29 level crossings to date. We have an extraordinary record on this front, and we are very proud about undertaking these major projects in a very appropriate way.

We also like to—and I might just put it out there—consult engineers before we come up with rushed project numbers because we are panicking about a federal election or whatever else might be going on. I do not know; I am just speculating. We actually like to go through a proper consultation process. Mr Davis might like to better inform himself about what actually happens rather than making stuff up.

I am now going to get back to the central tenets of the bill. We know that the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act 2009 fundamentally sets out the process for negotiating agreements on how utility infrastructure will be removed, relocated or protected. This act has functioned well over time in terms of facilitating major transport projects, such as the projects which are still ongoing, including the Melbourne Metro Tunnel and those wonderful level crossing removal projects.

However, as I was saying at the start, we do have to make sure that the act reflects current best practice, and that is fundamentally where the purpose of these amendments is sourced from. That is the genesis of these amendments: to make sure that they reflect the kinds of critical conversations that are currently going on between the project authorities and utility providers. Because fundamentally—and you know this even as a layperson—when you are removing or relocating gas, water or electricity, you have to take great care and you have to very accurately anticipate how much time that part of the project is going to take. There are many different elements that have to come together just at the right time to prevent untoward delay and untoward costs. If you do not bring in the utility provider at the declaratory phase, there is a real risk to deadlines, fundamentally. I am going to go into a bit more detail regarding these issues.

Fundamentally what this amendment bill is trying to achieve, and will achieve, is to put a structure in place to facilitate a more expedient pathway to agreement based on what has been experienced to date. If you actually leave negotiation between the utility provider and the project authority right to the eve of construction, this inhibits the ability to find solutions. Solutions to potential delay and disruption in the process are better able to be achieved both for consumers and also the utility providers if you incorporate them in the planning stage. I think that makes sense. That really is just common sense. Part of the reason why is that when the construction companies are having to anticipate the various costs, there is quite an element of risk. Also, if we are looking at the bidders themselves, if they have to try to anticipate elements that are not covered in the planning stage, they may have to put in place a risk premium. What that means at the end of the day is a risk to the overall cost and cost blowout of a project, and none of us—no-one here in this chamber—wants to see any unnecessary escalation of cost or delay to a project. Fundamentally what we are all about here is delivering better outcomes in terms of transporting people around the community. That is what we are here to do. That is what fundamentally this is about. It is not political football. This is about saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got some terrific transport projects. The community have said yes. Let’s make them happen in the most expedient way’.

As Mr Davis referred to—and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised that he did refer to some of the salient features of the project, and I thank him for that—instead of having to wait for the expiry of the 30-day notification period, they can actually bring in the utility provider earlier once a utility provider has responded and supplied the information requested by the project authority. That is just common sense, so it is good to have it in a legislative format so it gives all parties security in the process.

The project authority also has the discretion to provide more time for utilities to comply because it does not make sense to have unnotified assets. That is also common sense. We are talking about gas, water and electricity. It makes sense to do everything possible to locate those assets in a timely manner, bearing in mind that you are dealing with major utility providers and you may need a little more time to get the right outcome in that regard.

Another benefit of the amendments to the act is ensuring agreements can be in place before tenders are finalised. This provides clarity regarding the total cost of relocation, removal or protection, as the case may be. It also helps with procurement and tendering. I was referring before to those risk premiums. It then provides an ability to overcome some of those overall risks to cost and time blowouts. I will reiterate that the bill does not alter the rights of utilities. That is not what is in play here. I think it is a little bit luxurious perhaps at best to take that little tangent there as a way to try to taint this bill in an unflattering manner. Really what this bill is about is bringing the utility provider in at the declaratory stage of a project. It is a logical thing to do. It saves money, and it saves risks to deadlines. It is about giving greater scope to come up with the best possible options and outcomes for the project.

Fundamentally I know—I could see this while reading through the bill itself—that it does not make sense to wait until the most difficult point, right on the eve of construction of a project, before you actually engage the utility provider. We know that in reality the project authorities are not waiting, because that is a waste of their effort and time, and they want to minimise the costs, the risks and the delays in the long run.

As has been mentioned, this bill also removes the redundant burden, so to speak, in the negotiation phase with utility providers. Some utility providers operate in a limited geographic space or area, so why include those particular utility providers unnecessarily? It is not about discriminating. It is simply a factual and logical definition of where utility providers are most likely to be. That is really what that element of the amendments is about. The 50-day negotiation period does not have to have expired, which has also been alluded to, before an expert determination can be sought to resolve any disputes.

We are talking about professional operators here, and if they have genuinely tried their hardest to reach an agreement and have been unable to do so and they can see that simply waiting there and twiddling their thumbs for 50 days is not going to make the situation any better and is really just causing unnecessary delays and costs, then why not escalate and proceed—either party—to an appropriate dispute resolution process? Having been through many dispute resolution processes myself, I think we can say that professionals can pretty early on identify when they are not able to reach an appropriate outcome. Really, again, this is reflecting best practice in the modern era.

Fundamentally, major transport projects need many different technical processes to fall in line in a timely manner. I do not believe anyone in this house wants to see an unnecessary delay, because ultimately we owe it to the community to get the most efficient process possible in place to get these major projects delivered.

We know in the Andrews government we are all about delivering. We have a very strong and actually an impeccable record of delivering, and I do not say that to exaggerate. It stands to reason. You can actually look and see, and that is what the community has also identified and appreciated. They can see exactly where the transport infrastructure spend is going, and at the same time they can measure the direct benefit for themselves.

Fundamentally, I commend this bill to the house because of the very pragmatic and considerate nature of the amendments which have been proposed, which are fundamentally reflecting best practice as it is today between utility providers and project authorities. To delay on these particular amendments would actually in the long run be a negative for the community who we claim to serve.

I believe we are here to serve the community, so if we are going to honour that promise to the community, then we had better make sure that we reflect best practice in the modern era and allow an appropriate structure to bring utility providers and the project authorities together in a structured and purposeful way that lets them achieve the right outcome in a timely manner.

Mr HAYES (Southern Metropolitan) (11:37): This bill is about facilitation of the construction of the North East Link. As members will know, the North East Link is a freeway proposed to be constructed between the Metropolitan Ring Road and the Eastern Freeway. It is about 10 kilometres long, with about half of that in a tunnel.

My first observation is that in the run-up to the 2014 election Premier Andrews told readers of the Heidelberg Leader that he was not interested in building the North East Link. It was only after being elected in 2014 that the government decided it needed to build the link.

My second observation is that this project is a classic example of the serious downsides of Melbourne’s rapid population growth. This rapid population growth has not always been a feature of Melbourne, but it has been for the last 15 years. During this period we have been adding an extra 70 000 vehicles a year to our roads—an extra 70 000 vehicles every year! This extra traffic undoes all the good intentions of this government and its departments and agencies and of councils, business and community groups, households and individuals to reduce our carbon footprint, and as a result Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise when they need to be falling. But in addition it generates massive traffic congestion. We all see it and feel it on a daily basis. It is harming our quality of life and the community’s physical and mental health. So the state government is under great political pressure to do something about the traffic; hence we get a project like this.

My third observation is that this project comes with a massive opportunity cost. The estimated cost of the project is $16 billion—$16 billion! If it did not proceed, the government could live without gambling revenue for the next 15 years or it could properly fund programs to tackle mental health, homelessness or Indigenous disadvantage. It could proceed with public transport programs which would do much to reduce car trips and make our city livable.

My fourth observation is that this project is truly enormous and will have serious detrimental effects on the area’s precious and modest open space. Boroondara has very little open space, but the council has advised me it will be losing 20 per cent of its public open space in the Koonung Creek Reserve. There will also be the removal of thousands of trees and the loss of important biodiversity sites along the Koonung Creek and the Yarra River.

Trees are not an optional extra. They are an essential part of this city’s capacity to live and breathe, and casually destroying them flies in the face of mountains of scientific and medical evidence as to their significance and importance to the city’s health. Indeed residents have told me that the whole of Koonung Creek Reserve will be bulldozed during the construction phase and that half of it will be wiped out forever. So 12.7 hectares of parkland will be permanently lost, and the Planning Institute of Australia has joined Manningham and Boroondara councils in condemning this loss of public parkland.

This project freeway is up there with the world’s widest. The widest freeway in the world has 26 lanes; this one has got 24 lanes and two for buses. There will be a loss of amenity from increased traffic volumes and noise on Bulleen Road, connecting arterial roads and local roads, and there will be potential changes to these roads.

My fifth observation is that this freeway will have adverse effects on sporting and recreational pursuits for my constituents and on their amenity. The Boroondara Tennis Centre will go. The Freeway Public Golf Course will have two holes removed to make way for tunnel ramps. The reduction in size may make the course unviable. Boroondara council has been advocating for the tennis centre to be retained as a 23-court public facility and for the good-quality, playable and viable 18-hole freeway golf course to remain intact.

My sixth observation is that this project spells the end of the line for the Doncaster rail project. I would like to hear from the government whether this is so. What are its plans for the Doncaster rail project? Doesn’t this project kill it off, and if provisions for the rail project remain, why not get on with it and build the railway? If it is true that the train corridor is being turned into bus lanes, that frankly is a pathetic outcome.

Indeed the government’s own projections are that the North East Link will see nearly 6000 people leave the train network and use cars or buses instead. It has been reported to me that buses on the Eastern Freeway are not allowed in the bus lane until 7.00 a.m. The buses heading into the city from the Doncaster park-and-ride currently have standing room only well before 7.00 a.m., and many buses have to drive in congested car lanes until it strikes 7.00 a.m.—not very sensible.

Transport experts were quoted by Clay Lucas and Timna Jacks in the Age as saying the North East Link was ‘a short-sighted solution to population growth’. When you look at a project like this, the idea that public transport should play the major role in transport to and from areas of high population density—or, in the government’s terminology, activity centres—has clearly been abandoned by this government—if it was ever the government’s intention to create activity centres for this purpose as opposed to it being a smokescreen for the government’s cosy relationship with property developers.

My seventh observation is that no weight has been given to the experience with previous freeway projects. For example, increased volumes of traffic on Stud Road and on Springvale Road were used as the official justification for building EastLink. However, these roads, post-EastLink, continue to be congested. Similarly the promised benefits from the expansion of the M1 and other freeways have proved to be transitory.

My eighth observation is that there has been poor process surrounding this project. I am sick of commercial-in-confidence being used to hide from taxpayers how their dollars are being spent. The Sustainable Australia party believes in transparency, not hiding behind commercial-in-confidence, and I give notice that I will be pursuing full disclosure on this and other projects where taxpayers money is involved. Furthermore, the government is now going through an environment effects statement process, but many people believe the consultation process is a farce, a sham, a charade. The EES should come before the government locks itself into the project.

My ninth observation is that residents are concerned that the government is failing them when it comes to protection against noise. We are a First World country, and we should be implementing the highest First World noise standards. The World Health Organization has a standard of 53 dBA for new projects. In practice I am told that this would require walls of around 10 metres in height, and I understand that is not what is on the plan. I commend the work of Ben Dawson and other local residents and businesses who have been trying to ensure that local people do not have their lives unnecessarily rendered miserable by this project.

My final observation is this: if we do not curb Melbourne’s population explosion—129 000 people per year—all the costs, all the pain, all the loss of open space of this project will be for nought. The relentless growth in traffic—70 000 extra vehicles every year—will just eat up those new car lanes and take us back to bumper-to-bumper snarling, impotent rage.

The Liberal opposition has said they are supporting this project, so there is little point in trying to head off this bill, but I appeal to the government to take more notice of the affected residents and take more notice of what these massive freeway projects are actually doing to our city—our inner suburbs in this case—in the longer term.

Dr KIEU (South Eastern Metropolitan) (11:46): I rise to support the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Amendment Bill 2019 and echo my colleagues here in supporting this amendment bill. This bill amends part 7 of the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act 2009. At the moment a few major transport projects have been declared, including the regional rail link, Peninsula Link, the Melbourne Metro project, the West Gate Tunnel, the North East Link and the Western Highway duplication between Ballarat and Beaufort.

At the moment, project authorities have to notify all the utility providers, even though this is redundant in some cases as they do not have any utilities at the location of the projects to be built. On top of that, there is a notification process of 30 days for relevant parties or utility providers, and if there is no reply from the providers after 30 days, then that infrastructure will be deemed unnotified. Then there is the added time to resolve the unnotification before the project can proceed. There is also a period of 50 days during which the parties are able to negotiate to come to a resolution. If there is an impasse—if there is something that cannot be agreed upon—then the parties have to wait until the end of that 50-day period before they can access dispute resolution. Those are the obstacles and redundancies that are costly in terms of time and money, which add to the uncertainty of the time line for the completion of projects.

The currently proposed Major Transport Projects Facilitation Amendment Bill 2019 deals with the utilities regime under part 7 of the act. It tries to improve the process, lower the costs and reduce the time. This amendment bill proposes first of all that the project authority has to notify the relevant utility providers as soon as the project is declared. They do not have to wait until it is approved. Also, only the relevant parties will have to be notified, not all of the utilities as is the case at present. During the 30-day notification period the provider can be notified and then the negotiation can begin. During the 50 days of negotiation, if there is any dispute that cannot be resolved and there is an impasse, the parties can have access to dispute resolution to speed up reaching an agreement or the resolution that they may have come up with.

In terms of the tendering and the procurement processes, the bill will also make these very transparent and timely. The bill requires only that reasonable steps need to be taken to identify the facility that needs to be removed, relocated or protected. Not only that: these steps would also lower the risk premium that the tenderers would have had to build into their tendering documents otherwise. In terms of consumers, this also represents a benefit by removing uncertainty for the consumer, whether it is a private consumer or an industrial consumer. Also, during the identification and negotiation process any of the problems that might be identified can be identified in order to avoid any unnecessary delays or disruption to the consumer.

In all, the process proposed in the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Amendment Bill 2019 is necessary to remove all the redundancies, to improve timeliness, to avoid possible or potential delays and also to lower the cost to the government of building major transport projects. These transport projects are important for the growing population of Melbourne and Victoria as a whole. They are the generational projects that will make this state one of the driving engines of the economy of the whole of Australia.

In terms of the questions that might be raised about this amendment bill, one example is: ‘In practice, what will the bill change for the utilities?’. The bill allows the project authority to take all reasonable steps to identify the infrastructure that may be affected, and it brings the process forward to when the project is declared—rather than when it is approved, which takes time—and also when the location is designated. The bill does not change the rights of utilities; it changes only the timing of the opportunity so that projects can be more efficient in the timing required.

In summary, the consumer will not be impacted; only the timing of the identification and negotiation process will be impacted. Consumers are not disadvantaged under the current system or under the changes. The changes also remove the uncertainty and the wait that the consumer may otherwise have to face. Why do we need to engage utilities earlier? It is obvious that it will make the costs more transparent and help the tendering process and also the procurement process to be more efficient, and it could lower the risk premium that would have been built in otherwise.

How does the bill enable agreements to be reached earlier? The bill will remove the requirement for project approvals to be granted and the project area to be determined before the utility regime begins. Now the project authority will be able to use the utility regime when the project is declared to be a major transport project under the act. In practice utilities will be engaged during the planning phase when the project authority is assessing the land, the planning and the environmental implications of the project. The authority will not have to engage with every utility but only with the relevant utilities. The authority only needs to take all reasonable steps to do so. Will the time frame be impacted? The time frames are not being shortened at all, but the steps can be completed earlier if the full time frame is not required.

Overall the project authority will continue to fund the utility relocation or protection costs. The earlier engagement may mean more work at the front end for some utilities, but the result may be less disruption during the construction of the project.

Does the bill mean that some steps can be skipped? No. The bill recognises in particular that the important North East Link Project authority has already taken all reasonable steps to identify utilities and notify them that utilities need to supply information on the location of their infrastructure. In most cases utilities have been or are compliant with the requests for information. If the required exchange of information has already occurred, the process does not need to be repeated to satisfy the new requirements. In relation to other major projects, these projects will operate under the new provisions moving forward from now on. With that, I support and commend this Major Transport Projects Facilitation Amendment Bill 2019 to the house.

Business interrupted pursuant to sessional orders.