Thursday, 14 November 2019

 Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (18:20): I wish to raise a matter this evening for the attention of the Minister for Public Transport. Of concern to me for quite some time is what will happen to commuters who use the Sunbury railway station, because at the moment, as with a lot of railway stations, the Sunbury railway station is really hard-pressed for parking. While at the moment there is a solid construction for parking, my understanding is that to expand, the current car park will have to be pulled down. That is obviously going to cause an enormous amount of trouble for those people who are currently using that car park.

Somebody came to see me at my office sometime earlier this year and put forward a suggestion that I want to put to the minister for her consideration. I do not necessarily endorse it, but what I do say is that it is worth examining. It has possibilities, as they say in the classics. It involves the stacking of cars. Not the stacking of cars as some might have done on a Saturday night in Broadmeadows or somewhere like that, but the parking of cars one on top of another—that might be the better way of putting it. This would, to my way of thinking, avoid the necessity to rip down the current car park. It would also avoid the necessity of building a new one. That seems to me to save a lot of money.

Now, I know that this government is not keen on saving money, but it might be something that it could take into consideration at some stage. We know that the budget is in trouble. We saw legislation go through the house today which is going to slug Victorians many, many millions—hundreds of millions if not thousands of millions—of dollars in the next year or two, so it is probably something that the government should consider. I ask the minister to take on board this way of parking and to examine it to see if it does have any merit, and if so, to implement it so as to provide parking for the good people of Sunbury, for the people in Diggers Rest, for the people in Sunshine and for the people right through my electorate in the western suburbs. Laverton is another one that springs to mind. So I ask the minister to take that on board, to examine the possibilities there and to see if that is a way of solving a real problem. I ask the minister to examine this area to see if it can solve a real problem.