Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is part of the problem with the Labor Party. The Labor Party does not care about infrastructure. It is now building the Western Distributor, which is a poor cousin of the East West Link. The member opposite shows he has no care whatsoever for regional communities, and it is an absolute joke. In fact, the western road into Geelong—the western section of the East West Link—had a very high BCR, frankly, and is greatly needed for our community. This is simply not good enough.

We need a state government led by Matthew Guy, who has the vision and the foresight to invest in regional infrastructure. We need a fast train between Melbourne and Geelong. We need to know that, when the people of Geelong and the people of Corangamite decide to live in our wonderful part of the world, they can get on a train and, if they work in Melbourne, commute successfully.

We recognise that Victoria and Melbourne in particular are growing very quickly. We need to do more and we want to do more. We simply do not have the pipeline of infrastructure projects at the moment under this state government, and that really is a shocking situation that we find ourselves in. It is incredible that in so many respects it is the Commonwealth leading the way in driving these infrastructure projects. In 2013 we announced $50 million to upgrade the Great Ocean Road—a project that was not supported by federal Labor. In concert with the state we have just announced another $50 million, but it took Daniel Andrews some six months to agree to match the funding of $345 million for Victorian rural and regional roads as part of a $1.5 billion package that we delivered—money that was allocated to the East West Link which we have now had to reallocate because we cannot get agreement from this Victorian government. But we have $3 billion on the table because we are determined to see the East West Link built.

Just last weekend I was talking to people who live in the western suburbs of Melbourne, and there is a lot of anger in those communities because they are absolutely caught in this horrific traffic bind, not able to commute in and out of Melbourne and under the leadership of a premier who does not seem to care about regional infrastructure. I am working very closely with the likes of the member for Wannon, who also cares deeply about regional rail—and I know many other members do—and, of course, the member for Gippsland, the federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, who is very empathetic to these issues.

We must see this money flow into our communities. We must see the vision. We must see the planning. That is why I am pushing so hard for a city deal to bring the Commonwealth, the state and local government together to drive one vision, one plan—to get this commitment to bring people around the table. Geelong is an amazing place to live, and we are so proud of the commitments that we have made. Look at the difference the investment in the Princes Highway has made. The duplicated Princes Highway, which is costing in excess of half a billion dollars, is an absolute game changer for our region. There is now a housing shortage in Colac. Industries want to head into south-west Victoria because of that road. We know how critical transport infrastructure is to our region.

So I say: Victoria, get your act together. Produce the plan, and help and work with us to drive the infrastructure investment that we need. I am going to continue to lobby my government very hard to deliver more funding for better passenger rail so vital for Geelong and so vital for Corangamite.

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