Thursday, 2 April 2026

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (12:52): (2298) My constituency question today is for the Minister for Public and Active Transport. I made it to the chamber with one minute to spare this morning because I was standing at the bus stop, the bus took a long time to come and then when it did arrive it sailed past the bus stop with a message reading ‘Sorry, bus full’. It is fantastic to see in response to the announcement of free public transport, which the Greens called for, such an immediate uptake in public transport in Victoria, but it underlines what I said when we came out with this initiative. The government needs to increase services to match the increased demand. We know that the community has been calling for reform of our bus network, and we have had contributions from around this chamber in favour of that. When is the funding for that project going to arrive? We know that there is overcrowding that exists already on V/Line services. When are they going to be funded? Minister, how are you going to track unmet demand for me and the other constituents who were left stranded at the bus stop this morning?