Tuesday, 14 October 2025

 David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (13:02): My question is for Gabrielle Williams, the Minister for Public and Active Transport in the other place. My constituent resides in Wyndham Vale, and she recently travelled into Melbourne CBD for a medical appointment. The bus and train connecting services resulted in a 20-minute wait between arriving at Wyndham Vale from Southern Cross and the bus to get her home. Getting a taxi or rideshare is prohibitively expensive for my constituent. The bus–rail coordination guidelines recently tabled in Parliament show that Wyndham Vale scores lowest against the Department of Transport and Planning benchmarks for bus–train coordination wait times under 10 minutes, with only 32 percent compliance, compared to 98 per cent in Sandringham, for example. My constituent asks: given the government is spending eye-watering amounts on the Suburban Rail Loop, when will bus route and timetable changes be implemented to simply allow westies to access timely public transport services like the rest of Melbourne?