Wednesday, 14 May 2025

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (18:22): (1625) My adjournment is to the Minister for Environment, and it concerns the Greenvale Reservoir Park in my electorate. The action I seek is for the minister to provide an update on the desperately needed reopening of the park. Despite Labor’s spin and empty promises, we do not really know when it will occur. It has been over 3000 days since your government promised $1.4 million to upgrade the Greenvale Reservoir Park, but the park still remains behind padlocks. I recently took the Shadow Minister for Environment, the member for Sandringham, to the Greenvale Reservoir Park to see it firsthand – in fact to the Somerton Road entrance of the Greenvale Reservoir Park, which is behind padlocks. This is the same Somerton Road entrance that the government – Ms Spence and Ms D’Ambrosio – said in a 2017 media release would receive $1.4 million to upgrade that entrance. Now, the state of that entrance, with overgrown weeds and dumped rubbish, does not look very upgraded to me.

The Liberals and Nationals know that communities like Greenvale deserve access to facilities to recreate, enjoy time with their families and use the facilities. Many in the community have great memories, like I do from when I was a kid, of going to the Greenvale Reservoir Park for family barbecues, for festivals and for cultural days. Many in our multicultural communities loved going there and have great memories of going there. It was closed for dam wall reconstruction works in 2014 and never reopened, despite promises. There was that $1.4 million promise, which seemed to go nowhere. Then we had the member for the neglectorate of Greenvale going out with the Minister for Water and promising $3 million last year to reopen the park, like it was new funding. What happened to the $1.4 million?

The action I seek from the Minister for Environment is to answer what happened to the $1.4 million announced by his predecessor in 2017, because it seems to have gone missing. Is that now included in the $3 million that is required to reopen the park? The community deserves answers.

I see many on the Labor side of politics – and fair enough – speaking about the federal election result. None of them seem to be speaking about the federal election result in this part of the world, in the seat of Calwell, where Labor received an almost 15 per cent swing against them. There was a very similar result to 2022, a 15.5 per cent swing against them. The action I seek from the Minister for Environment is for the government to explain itself on its 2017 promise that has not been fulfilled.