Wednesday, 15 October 2025

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (18:36): (1998) My adjournment tonight is for the attention of the Minister for Public and Active Transport and Minister for Transport Infrastructure – both have got a role here, but especially the Minister for Public and Active Transport. It is about informing the community and commuters in particular about the truth of the Metro Tunnel.

The Metro Tunnel is in concept a good project. The government chose, though, not to connect South Yarra station, so what we will now see when the Metro opens is that the train will go past South Yarra station. You will be able to see the train disappearing into the tunnel – it could toot; you could wave at it. You could wave at someone on the train, but it will never, ever stop in South Yarra again from the Pakenham and Cranbourne line. People will not be able to go to South Yarra from the Cranbourne and Pakenham line; they will be forced to change. The government needs to explain to commuters that they are going to get a lesser service and a less frequent service and they are going to be forced to change. Nor will people be able to go directly to the MCG. If you are coming from Cranbourne or Pakenham and you want to go to the football on Friday or Saturday night, you will no longer be able to go straight to Richmond and walk across. You will have to go to another station, change and move. Let me just say: this will be a problem as people come out of the MCG in their droves after a big match, after having 100,000 people there, and they will not be able to get easily onto the station.

Let me also be clear that people who are coming from the Cranbourne or Pakenham lines and want to get to South Yarra will be forced to change at Caulfield. Even for those who would want to come through Malvern or one of those stations, it will not be so easy for them to get to Cranbourne or Pakenham. So this is going to become more difficult for many people. It will help some people. There is no question about that.

The minister also needs to come clean on the cost of the project, a project that started at $9 billion and is now at either $15 billion or $16 billion. The government will not tell us the final cost of the project. I make that a more than 70 per cent increase in the cost of the project, and they need to come clean on the precise cost blowout.

Finally, the problem with South Yarra being cut out is that it is going to put more pressure on the Frankston line and more pressure on the Sandringham line, and the government is again not talking about these factors. They are not talking about increasing the services on those lines.

So the government needs to come clean. The minister needs to make a statement and needs to run proper advertising. They have run advertising about how magnificent the Metro is, but they are not running advertising to explain to commuters how the services for many of them will deteriorate.

The PRESIDENT: So that was to the minister for transport?

David DAVIS: And transport infrastructure. It is about the cost too. Transport is the most impacted, but it is the Minister for Transport Infrastructure who has got control of it at the moment.

The PRESIDENT: Yes, but you cannot do that – you know that.

David DAVIS: All right – transport.

The PRESIDENT: We will land on transport.