Thursday, 3 August 2023

Ballarat train station

Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (17:55): (374) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, and it relates to the $50 million set of works provided to improve the Ballarat railway station. The action that I seek is very simple: can the minister give an ironclad guarantee that the project will be delivered on time and on budget? The commitment is even more important given that the project is already overdue. I hope to also see the minister commit to releasing a time line to ensure that the Ballarat community has some idea of when they can expect to see this project finished.

As reported in the Ballarat Courier on 17 July this year, the member for Wendouree has apologised to disability advocates in Ballarat for the lack of progress. She said that the existing station’s set-up made people feel like ‘second-class citizens’ which was ‘not acceptable’. Well, I actually could not agree more. The station has a very old central bridge, which was built in a time well before any of us were here. People who have a mobility disability are rightfully frustrated, because to get to the other platform, they actually need to go out of the station, across the line and then back into the station again. It is just bizarre. Mind you, the gates are not even finished there either.

I know politics can be a somewhat brutal business, but I do have to recognise and praise government MPs when they are doing the right thing. So I would like to commend the member for Wendouree in the other place – she is a fine person – for her honesty in acknowledging the failings of her own government. Just to make it clear: she said that the lack of progress made people with a disability feel like second-class citizens and it was not acceptable. I imagine there are many more things that she could apologise for as well. She has made a solid start, and she deserves to be acknowledged and commended and encouraged for that. I look forward to the minister following suit as well.

This is indeed an example of a promise by Labor that has not been delivered. Maybe it is an evolving promise – we will see – but it is part of a growing list of promises that we have heard but that have not been delivered. The Commonwealth Games and the airport rail link – promised; scrapped. No new taxes – 50 taxes later. Congratulations on that milestone, by the way. And there is a litany of other broken promises and warped commitments. If the government is serious about delivering station upgrades for Ballarat, I welcome that. But if you say you are going to do something and then do not, that leads to an erosion of public trust in the government, and that is something that this government has been characterised by.