Tuesday, 2 August 2022

 Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (14:48): (1882) My constituency question is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and it concerns her proposed $34.5 billion rail line from Cheltenham to Box Hill in my electorate. My question for her is this: why has the Andrews Labor government, why has this minister, consistently refused to provide the business case for this program to Infrastructure Australia? The Andrews Labor government has over many years espoused the view very strongly that every single transport infrastructure project should have a business case submitted to Infrastructure Australia. The Premier himself has been very strong on this point. He said in 2015 ‘never again’—never again would a business case not be provided to Infrastructure Australia. Mr Pakula said that to not provide a business case to Infrastructure Australia for a major project was economic vandalism. He said those on this side of the house would accuse the Labor government of economic vandalism should they ever do anything of the sort, and yet they have done it. If the project stacks up, as the minister says it does, why has she refused to provide the business case?