Tuesday, 10 September 2024

Ringwood East train station

Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:37): (1128) Minister, it is that time of the night – it is toilet time. You know what I am talking about. Do not pretend you do not, Minister, but if you do not, I am going to give you the benefit of every doubt there is in this place.

Harriet Shing interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: Minister, I am glad you have no doubts. That is exactly what I want to hear, because toilet time is critical to me. It is critical to the people of Ringwood East in my electorate of Ringwood as well. I am glad you are here today, because I have very much looked forward to this opportunity. I received a letter from your colleague last Friday, although he pinged it on Thursday, and in that letter he explained why I cannot have a toilet at Ringwood East train station. Apparently it is a local station.

Harriet Shing: Which colleague?

Nick McGOWAN: It was colleague Danny Pearson, the Assistant Treasurer with his box of assorted chocolates of other portfolios. He said this is a local station and therefore I cannot have a toilet and neither can the people of Ringwood East and the people of Ringwood and so on and so forth. This is a very sad state of affairs, and I want to read a passage of this letter. This does cover your area of equality, so I am coming to that. I have got a couple of minutes, I am glad to say. In this letter I have, your dear colleague says:

Toilet facilities are not provided at unstaffed stations –

which I get by now; I get it, it is not a premium station –

due to concerns around potential risks to community safety …

What? What is he saying? It is very cryptic. And then he goes on:

… vandalism and the inability to provide immediate staff assistance if required.

Well, hang on, I do recall in government we gave them PSOs at every station, including Ringwood East. I think that is more than adequate at that station; that is my personal view, but if you could pass that on to him as well that would be great. We have PSOs, we have an abundance of cameras, two level crossing removals later and a brand new train station. And the irony here, Minister, is they actually have toilets at the station for the PSOs – that is right. They have toilets at the station separate from those toilets for the engineers, the signallers and so forth. So there are actually two sets of toilets at this billion-dollar station, a conglomerate of what has occurred.

Harriet Shing interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: A billion dollars. You might have missed it, Minister, when you were just chatting to the President there, but that includes the two level crossing removal projects and the new station, you see. But of that billion dollars, the good people of Ringwood East cannot get one measly little toilet – not even like those in Amsterdam, the public urinals they have; they cannot even get that. I have used that – that is horrific; we do not want that. We actually want a self-contained, self-cleaning urinal and toilet bowl. I know that seems like a lot to ask at this time of the night. That is what we are after – there is a serious point here – for women, for those who fear for their own safety. At the moment the toilets are 190 metres away, up two dark laneways. It is not safe. It in no way lends to this state being a state that actually takes equality seriously for anyone, much less women and much less people with a disability. I will ask you and your colleagues to take this matter to cabinet and to implore the minister to change the status of the station from local to premium if that gets us our single toilet.