Tuesday, 28 May 2024

Transport infrastructure

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (21:09): (916) My adjournment is for the Minister for Ports and Freight, and I seek the action of the minister to explain its extraordinary backflip today on the Beveridge intermodal freight terminal (BIFT) and its abandonment of the Western freight terminal (WIFT) and to explain the economic consequences of dithering and delaying for so many years. The Labor Party have been dragged kicking and screaming to back the Beveridge intermodal freight terminal and are only supporting this critical project now due to the federal Labor government finally adopting the former federal Liberal government’s policy that was criticised at both a federal level and a state level.

I have to say, it is good to finally see sense from the federal government after they put it in review for a couple of years and to finally see sense from the Victorian government. I reckon they should rename this terminal the Richard Welch intermodal freight terminal, because Richard Welch was up against it as the former candidate for McEwen. He backed the BIFT because he knew it was going to create 20,000 jobs for our region up in Beveridge and the surrounding northern and north-east suburbs. It is going to be a winner for jobs in our communities, where there is a distinct lack of jobs because this government has not done any economic planning whatsoever. But I wanted to talk about and get the minister to explain the backflip, because there is so much evidence that this government tried to kill the BIFT. This government does not really support the BIFT but is only doing it because it has run out of money and the feds are paying for everything. The Premier said:

The Victorian government made it very clear, and has made it very clear on a number of occasions, that our priority for the establishment of an intermodal freight terminal for our city and state is in the western suburbs of Melbourne …

There’s a very good logical reason for this … because the western suburbs of Melbourne is the heart of Australia’s freight and logistics industry …

So there is a backflip there. They understood the need for both terminals, but the priority is in the west. The Victorian government spokesperson in 2022 during the election said it would not be lectured by the Commonwealth about the state’s infrastructure priorities and argued the freight industry supported the western facility because it is the project that stacks up.

Minister, why does it no longer stack up? Because Labor have run out of money. Labor have wasted billions – $40 billion on infrastructure blowouts, $600 million on the Commonwealth Games. They have run out of money, so the feds have come in and prioritised Beveridge. They did not have any money for the outer metro ring-road, they did not have any money for the WIFT and they did not have any money to fund 50 per cent of Camerons Lane in Beveridge, so they are just getting the feds to pay for it all. Well, Richard Welch and the Liberal Party at a state and federal level are completely vindicated, and federal and state Labor have come to the party.