Tuesday, 27 August 2024

Greenvale Reservoir Park

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (18:05): (1085) My adjournment is for the Minister for Environment, and it concerns the Greenvale Reservoir Park. I have repeatedly raised in both constituency questions and in adjournments the long overdue need for the southern section of the Greenvale Reservoir Park to be reopened, given the dam wall upgrades which closed the park were completed six years ago.

In the minister’s answers on 2 April and 16 July this year and in a media release from his predecessor, Ms D’Ambrosio, one of the upgraded amenities at the northern section of the park, which was highlighted by both ministers, was two new toilet blocks at the northern section of the park. Many community members found it quite curious that the minister was boasting about this. In fact I had the Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change, the member for Brighton in the other place, with me and community members at the northern section of the park last month, and what do you know? The two promised toilet blocks that had been boasted about by Labor ministers were not actually there. In the minister’s most recent answer to my questions on 19 August – after he had specifically stated there were two new toilet blocks – the minister has now passed the blame onto Parks Victoria and said that they have actually clarified that these toilet blocks were not installed. What a difference a month makes.

I seek the action of the minister to advise if there were ever any plans for new toilet blocks at the northern section of the park. I note there was previously a gazebo in the northern section of the park that was enjoyed by many in the community and that has since been removed, so I also seek the action of the minister to advise whether there are any plans to rebuild it or actually to build toilets at the park. As I mentioned, the minister has advised that dam wall works were actually completed in 2018. It is a whole six years since works were completed, but nothing is ever happening.

Locals were also told in a 2017 media release by the member for Mill Park and the now member for Kalkallo, ‘Revitalising valuable green space in Melbourne’s north’, that the $1.4 million Melbourne Water upgrade would aim to improve the park with – and the first dot point is – ‘better access at Somerton Road, Greenvale’. Well, it has been seven years since that media release promise, and the entrance at Somerton Road to Greenvale Reservoir Park is still closed – a broken promise. Over 600 people have signed my community petition on this issue, and I suspect many hundreds more will. It is time for the member for Greenvale to stand up, and it is time for the Minister for Environment to do what he can to urgently reopen the park for this community.