Tuesday, 18 March 2025

VicRoads Ringwood

Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (00:30): (1517) I can be accused of many things, and trash talk perhaps is one of them. Yet again tonight the action that I seek from the Minister for Roads and Road Safety relates to trash talk, I suppose, in one way or another. You see, in my constituency of Ringwood I have many, many constituents who complain quite frequently, and yet again I have had one come to my office just in the past few days. Minister, yes, that is right: trash talk. I am coming to the point. I will come to it. It relates to VicRoads.

Many people like to visit the VicRoads at Ringwood. It is a marvellous building. It is a bit like the Taj Mahal. It is quite large and exorbitant, and there are way too many layers of parking for my liking, but nonetheless, it is a beautiful looking building. There is, however, one problem, and this is where the trash talk comes into it, Minister, so brace yourself. The problem is of course that there is not a toilet. I know, Minister; it is way too much for this time of the morning. It is half past 12 and the last thing we need to talk about is the toilet. It is true too that I can be accused of asking too much. First, I wanted a toilet at Ringwood East train station, and now I want a toilet very close to Ringwood train station at VicRoads. But I jest because, believe it or not, this is an issue that constantly is raised.

Yet again I had a constituent in a nearby electorate, and a member in the other chamber has referred it to me, and I bring it here into this chamber tonight in a sincere and desperate hope for those poor individuals – as they are crossing their legs, their toes, their fingers and all the other parts of their bodies that they can cross to hold themselves – that at some point VicRoads will see fit to install a toilet. As we all know, there is nothing quite like being caught in a queue when you need to go. Well, it is a bit of a distance to run over to Eastland. We love our friends at Eastland, but it is at least a good 100-metre dash, and no-one is prepared to do that. If you are holding a little hand, it makes it even harder. It is just not going to happen. It is going to end in disaster, let us face it. Likewise, if you have got to dash to the train station – and thank God the Ringwood train station does have a toilet – you have got to go up one set of escalators, across the promenade and down the other stairs. By the time you got there, again, chaos would ensue, and it would be very unsightly.

It is for the sake of all of my constituents, the elderly, the young, the young at heart and the ones with youngsters with them. It is a very young theme tonight because it is very early in the morning, but nonetheless you get my gist. My gist of course is that if the minister can see it within herself to plead with the people at VicRoads – and I shall join her in that plea – for a toilet at the VicRoads office at Ringwood train station, then I would be eternally grateful. More importantly, the cleaners probably no doubt right across the district of Ringwood would be eternally grateful, because once and for all we could provide some relief to all of my constituents.