Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Department of Treasury and Finance

Budget papers 2024–25

Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:57): I rise to speak on the state budget for 2024–25, which raises the budget for train services and public transport in Victoria. Recently the Allan Labor government issued a press release proudly saying that stage 3 of the Shepparton line upgrade would be completed later this year. The problem is that is more than two years behind schedule, because we were promised that with that upgrade nine train services would be running Monday to Friday to Shepparton by the end of 2023. We were also promised that five weekend services would be running by 2023. So it is hard to see how the government can be bragging about trying to deliver something that is at least two years late. It does say that there is going to be major construction taking place later that year, so it apologises to people that they will be inconvenienced with transfers to buses. But when it goes on to say what it is actually going to deliver, it says extra services will be enabled by the completion of this project, including trains every hour on the Seymour line on weekends and five weekend return services through to Shepparton. The problem with this is the promised nine weekday return services have disappeared off the list of what the government seems to be promising Greater Shepparton. That promise was made by Jacinta Allan herself, that we would have nine weekday return services between Shepparton and Melbourne by the end of 2023. So not only is the infrastructure being delivered two years late, but it seems to be that the promise to deliver those additional services has also gone by the wayside.

We have traffic lights that were installed in Wyndham Street prior to COVID that still have ‘Not in use’ on them, and the community is absolutely confused by this – this is five years these traffic lights have been sitting there. The government says that they will not get turned on until the actual railway line work is completed, and part of what needs to be completed is the signalling work. I am told that there are only a couple of people in Victoria that do signalling work and that they are so backed up with work that our work could be a long way off. So I would say that is why we are not getting our nine return services: because the signalling work has not been done and still will not be done even when they complete the infrastructure. The government need to actually come clean, and they need to tell the people of Shepparton when they will deliver the nine weekday return services that they promised and when those services will commence. They need to tell us when the five weekend return services will be delivered in full, and they need to tell us when the traffic lights in Wyndham Street will be turned on, because people in the community are not very turned on by those traffic lights, I might say. They want to be turned on by them – they want them to be operating – and they want to see nine services running Monday to Friday and at least five services on the weekend. In fact we could do with more than that.

Talking about weekend services, what we are seeing not only on the weekend but every day is overcrowding of trains on the Seymour, Shepparton and Albury line. The government is not putting enough carriages on the trains. I raised during constituency questions this week an issue that a constituent from Seymour had raised with me, where they caught the 4:36 train home. There were only two carriages on that train at 4:36 on a Sunday. It was the end of the weekend, with people coming home from the footy and people coming home from shopping in Melbourne, and there were at least 20 people in both those carriages that did not have a seat – that were forced to either stand all the way to Seymour or sit on the floor. We are hearing this on a regular basis about the Albury line. It is a very long way to Wodonga and Albury, and people are being forced to stand or to sit on the floor. We are also hearing it about the Shepparton line trains. This government is not delivering the services that the people of regional Victoria deserve. The government actually needs to invest more in regional rail services and less in the suburban rail line and ensure that people in regional areas have access to quality service.

Michael Galea: On a point of order, President, can I just get Ms Lovell to clarify that she is advocating for less services in metropolitan Melbourne?

The PRESIDENT: No. Statements on reports used to be so peaceful and boring. It used to be a beautiful half an hour.