Tuesday, 22 February 2022

Churchill Street, Mont Albert, avenue of honour

Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (18:00): (1756) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and it is concerning the government’s wrongheaded and offensive plan to continue to destroy really important trees—memorial trees—in Churchill Street in Mont Albert. Last week I had the opportunity to head out to Churchill Street in Mont Albert and I met with some residents. It was planned that I meet with some residents; by chance I met with others who were there—just happened to be there—tending to the memorial trees. These are trees that I have spoken about before. Nine trees were planted back in 1965 in order to honour nine young local men who had served in World War I and lost their lives. Four of the trees were planted to honour four brothers, the Head brothers. William Head lost his life on the very first day of the Gallipoli landings, and the trees were planted on the 50th anniversary of the loss of William’s life, and yet the government now, I am sorry to have to report to the house, has destroyed three of these trees and has plans to destroy the rest of them, all in order to create a so-called access point for the railway line.

Now, I disagree with the government fervently that this is the only course of action. I have consulted with not only local residents but also engineers, who tell me that there are any number of other potential access points that could be used. Of course people in my electorate and people across the state are very aware of the government’s bungling of these sorts of major projects. On this project specifically of course the Labor Party promised that two stations would be retained—two stations, Surrey Hills station and Mont Albert station. Well, that promise has been broken. Lorne Parade Reserve is being destroyed. It is currently in the process of being destroyed. This is a wonderful local recreation space that was saved by the Liberal Premier Dick Hamer but also saved, I should say, by Labor Premier Joan Kirner. Now the Labor Party is destroying that reserve.

More broadly of course we have seen cost blowouts on projects such as this to the tune, would you believe it, of $24 billion. So bungles are nothing new, but the handling of this particular project in my electorate has been particularly egregious. The concerns of local residents and the concerns of the local RSL have been entirely overridden, and now we are seeing that even a memorial avenue of trees planted to honour dead local diggers is being destroyed when there are alternatives. There are still several trees left, and the bulldozers do not have to proceed So the action that I seek from the Minister for Transport Infrastructure is for her to urgently revise the government’s plan and not destroy these incredibly important trees.