Wednesday, 4 March 2026

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (19:14): (2383) It is no secret that I love Craigieburn and advocate on their behalf, so my adjournment is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety and the action I seek concerns the increasing amount of traffic and congestion suffered by my constituents in Craigieburn. The Craigieburn station car park on Interlink Drive was a long overdue addition for my community, who are consistently forced to wait for basic traffic infrastructure like car parks thanks to a very shoddy and delayed planning process. To make matters worse, when combined with increased traffic flowing from the Hume Highway and Hume Freeway on to Craigieburn via Craigieburn Road East, this has resulted in a serious bottleneck and significant congestion, particularly during peak periods. The situation is being further worsened by increased traffic along Craigieburn Road East, driven by expanding housing estates around Wollert, which is one of the fastest growing suburbs in all of Melbourne, with more vehicles funnelling into Craigieburn via the roundabout at the intersection on Interlink Drive and Craigieburn Road East. A constituent who has written to me says that he sees many dangerous incidents as well as close to a kilometre of traffic snaking back to the rail overpass bridge on the Hume. This is dangerous; it is unacceptable. But it is what is happening under the Labor government, who are happy to take the tax revenue from the new homes of course – the growth areas infrastructure contribution money, the stamp duty, the windfall – but refuse to spend it where it is actually collected.

The action I seek from the minister is to urgently investigate what traffic management, safety upgrades and general improvements can be made to the roads around Craigieburn railway station so my long-suffering constituents, who are desperately neglected by this government, have the ability after a long commute to get home sooner to their families. This is quite important. It is a traffic bottleneck every day around Craigieburn station and around Interlink Drive. My communities, as they are growing, need that urgent attention, particularly Craigieburn, which is I think the epicentre of all growth issues in Melbourne. Again, the government is happy to see all the tax and stamp duty revenue come in. They will spend it on a big $34 billion project in the eastern suburbs but will not actually deliver for the good people of the northern suburbs, which is what I am asking the government to do.