Wednesday, 18 March 2026

 Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (18:11): (2417) I am pleased to be able to ask a question of the Minister for Public and Active Transport. This relates to the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office report that I referenced earlier, Modernising Myki. The report finds a number of interesting insights and that the project’s value for money was uncertain, and it also points out that there are a number of areas in regional Victoria that are without any Myki service. In northern Victoria that includes Swan Hill, Echuca, Shepparton and Wodonga. I was very concerned – and I referenced this earlier in my statement on reports – that the Department of Transport and Planning has not started planning for future delivery phases. It is pointed out that the rollout of the tap-and-go system is meant to be launched for concessional fare Mykis and expanded to all regional areas in 2027. But DTP, according to VAGO’s report, does not have detailed plans for phase 3 and phase 4, so it is not clear how it will manage upcoming tasks and challenges. I will just quote from the report:

These phases are due to be ready by mid to late 2027. But they are more technically complex than earlier phases. DTP and CVTS have not started detailed planning for these phases. This includes planning with V/Line to expand the new system to regional areas.

As this work hasn’t started, the department cannot be reliably assured that these future phases will be delivered on time and with expected functionality.

The action I seek is for the minister to review the findings of this report and particularly to note recommendation 3, which references formally recording progress against key phase milestones and reporting to government at minimum on a quarterly basis. It goes into a bit more detail there. But I think it is important that the government and the minister fast-track detailed plans for the rollout of tap-and-go across the state and focus on upgrading public transport connections across regional Victoria, because currently we lack a lot of public transport. As I have said in this chamber many times, places very close to Bendigo do not have public transport. There are no bus services in places like Marong, Strathfieldsaye has no service on a Sunday and Sedgwick and Mandurang have few to no bus services, yet we are being asked to wait a long time for these services. I ask the minister to fast-track them.