Tuesday, 26 August 2025

Adjournment

Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (00:21): I move:

That the house do now adjourn.

Suburban Rail Loop

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (00:21): (1859) My adjournment matter this evening is directed to the Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, and the action I seek is for the minister to offer a briefing to the member for Bulleen and any of his interested colleagues in the Assembly on the progress of the Suburban Rail Loop East. If the Liberals are going to backflip into supporting infrastructure based on where the holes are already in the ground, they may as well be properly briefed on what they are now pretending to believe in. This marks the eighth policy the Liberals have had on the Suburban Rail Loop. It is no longer a plan, it is a magic eight ball – shake it and you will get a new answer every time. The Allan Labor government has only ever had one position on the Suburban Rail Loop, and we are getting right on with it. Construction is well underway, workers are on the ground and tunnel-boring machines will arrive imminently. It is a generational project with generational benefits, slashing travel times, taking pressure off our outer suburbs, delivering 70,000 homes along the line and connecting families to jobs, universities and health care. It is now up to the divided Liberal Party to confirm how long their newest policy will last, because the 3,000 workers on this project and their families simply deserve better. Victorians cannot afford this circus – not their chaos, not their cuts and certainly not their contradictions.