Wednesday, 28 May 2025

Victorian Auditor-General’s Office

Managing Disruptions Affecting Victoria’s Public Transport Network

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (17:43): I rise to speak on the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office’s Managing Disruptions Affecting Victoria’s Public Transport Network. We have seen quite a few today with the bus strike, and that has affected many in my community. I actually have sympathy for those workers in the Transport Workers’ Union. The government is actually seeking to blame the bus operators, and the bus operators are quite rightly pointing the blame fairly and squarely in the government’s corner – at least the last remaining bus operators that this government has not run out of town.

It is important to note, just like in the local government portfolio or other portfolios, the effect government cost shifting has on the lives of everyday Victorians. We have seen another example of that today, where the government seeks to wash its hands of the responsibility of paying our bus drivers properly. Many of the bus drivers in my community live in my community – the bus drivers that operate the local routes. I think it is really important to express solidarity with them, because what they are going through is a result of this government’s inability to manage money. When they cannot manage money somebody has to pay the price, and unfortunately it is both bus drivers and commuters today that are paying the price.

While I am on the topic of buses, I want to talk about public transport – or the lack of it – and buses that consistently get raised with me in the growth areas, particularly places like Greenvale and Kalkallo, some of the fastest growing suburbs and towns across the state. One bus route that gets raised with me very often is the 525 bus from Craigieburn to Donnybrook, covering a huge, huge growth area. It desperately needs to be expanded to cover new estates. Think of a very long housing estate full of thousands of people, and it only goes about the first couple of hundred metres, but the estate goes for 2 kilometres. This is what the people of the north, particularly in Kalkallo, have been left with. I have been advocating to the government to extend that particular bus route up Dwyer Street and then around on the new Cloverton Boulevard. But also there are many schools in both Mickleham and Kalkallo where the bus stops do not have bus shelters. So you get a day like today and you have got literally 50 kids standing there in weather like today in the freezing cold, waiting for a bus and when a bus gets cancelled they are waiting for upwards of an hour. Many parents have raised that particular one with me.

I also want to raise the point about Hidden Valley, which is a town in Wallan. Over 2300 people have got a flash and growing retirement living place there, and it does not have a single bus to the main centre of town. Many residents advocate to me and I advocate on their behalf for a bus for Hidden Valley. It is not good enough that there is not one. We have weasel words from the member for Kalkallo and the member for Yan Yean about a bus for Hidden Valley, and nothing seems to occur. Certainly nothing occurred in this budget as well.

So we need the government to take a good look at this, and as my colleague Ms Lovell raised today in her constituency question, we need better car parking spaces at Donnybrook station. Donnybrook station serves a huge area, from people in Mickleham to Kalkallo in my electorate to Donnybrook in Ms Lovell’s electorate to places like Woodstock as well, and the car parking situation is not good enough. You have had about 30 spaces a year added, and it is really a drop in the ocean compared to the massive population growth this area is going through. Constituents contact me and Ms Lovell about how residential streets are just littered with cars because the car park is full. The car park is full often from about 7:15 in the morning. And this is also a station, remember, that is the last on the V/Line track that is still V/Line. V/Line calls itself Australia’s fastest growing regional rail network. It is only because you have not bloody electrified any rail lines to our growing communities that need them. So the government should also look at car parks around Donnybrook station for this growing community.