Wednesday, 15 May 2024

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (18:49): (898) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and the action that I seek is for the minister to allocate funding for a feasibility study into extending the Mernda rail line to Wollert. The Wollert rail extension is a project that is straightforward, meets a clear community need and yet has been repeatedly ignored by a succession of Labor transport and infrastructure ministers.

The suburbs around the proposed rail corridor through Epping North and Wollert are growth areas where the population has been rapidly expanding for years and is predicted to go on increasing. Whittlesea council expects the population to double by 2041. An increasing number of workers and patients travel to the 400-bed Northern Hospital, which is directly across the road from the large Epping Plaza shopping centre. The government’s own housing statement names Epping as one of 10 activity centres targeted for increased densification in pursuit of its housing target. Families were lured to Epping North, Wollert and surrounding suburbs with the promise of a new leafy community close to transport hubs that would offer an easy ride into the city for work or leisure.

The rail corridor from the existing Lalor station to the proposed Wollert station was identified and incorporated into the precinct structure plan back in 2017, but the rail line extension has not been built, and now commuters are stuck in traffic, particularly on Plenty Road, which is already chronically congested and set to get worse. Without a rail link people are forced to drive, and residents have for several years reported commute times of up to 2 hours one way as they struggle through the dense traffic. This takes a heavy toll on commuters, with many negative knock-on effects on family and leisure time, which are central to personal wellbeing. A rail extension from Lalor to Wollert has been on the cards for a long time, and the land reserved for the rail corridor runs through the suburbs as an empty reminder of an unfulfilled promise. The time to build the extension is sooner rather than later, and the time to do the feasibility study is right now.

The federal government committed $250,000 towards a feasibility study for public transport in the area, and this commitment survived the Commonwealth infrastructure review that ended up killing other Victorian projects. The state government needs to match those funds and provide the initiative to get this feasibility study going, and yet the latest Victorian budget allocates no money for the study. This is a serious failure on behalf of the Allan Labor government. The feasibility study must be done as soon as possible so that any additional land required can be identified as soon as possible. Otherwise there is a real danger that land on or around the route will be built out, making the extension too difficult to pursue later on. The government has to stop kicking the can down the road and start planning – (Time expired)