Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and Pacific Island Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

It was a great honour, under the Morrison government and also under the former leader of the opposition Peter Dutton, to be looking after the multicultural communities. It was great to meet so many multicultural communities and, in particular, have funding which we put forward regarding making places of worship much safer.

I have my adviser Karthik Arasu here. I want to give Karthik a shout-out because it's his last week here in parliament. He's just had some great news too, with his wife Ankita just having a baby, Kyra. We wish you all the best on that new journey. Karthik, can I just say, first came to my office from the western suburbs and told me about issues in the multicultural community where temples were being damaged. Then he took me out there to meet the relevant people and arrange various meetings. I'd go to other multicultural events and, lo and behold, Karthik, you would be there. Eventually, after three or four months, I thought, 'Well, if he's going to every event, I may as well put him on the staff.' He did a fantastic job. Thank you for everything you did. We look forward to your future working for Jess Wilson, who is, hopefully, the next premier of Victoria. I wish you all the best. Thank you for giving us allowance, Madam Deputy Speaker Scrymgour.

On that note, I'll now talk about infrastructure projects in the seat of La Trobe. Can I just say again that, when it comes to infrastructure funding, it is so important in electorates, especially those like La Trobe. At one stage it was actually the fastest growing growth corridor in Australia. We took former prime minister Morrison out to Racecourse Road, and he made a great announcement there. When it came to Racecourse and McGregor roads, those road project proposals were put forward by Cardinia council—their engineering team. They estimated those projects to be $82 million. That's what we committed and, lo and behold, under state Labor, came back and said, 'Take it or leave it—$398 million,' which is quite a hefty change.

Then we also had Clyde Road. That was $70 million, and it blew out to $250 million—and that's only 900 metres of road from the train line over to the Monash Freeway. I spoke to Casey council. Casey council is a very big council; it's nearly like the size of Tasmania. When I spoke to their team of engineers, I said, 'How could this possibly cost in the vicinity of $250 million?' They just said clearly to me, 'It's the CFMEU.' Then you look around at these projects, and I noticed recently they've taken the CFMEU flags down, but when we have $15 billion of rorted funding from the CFMEU—and can I say, state Labor has allowed this to happen—that really puts pressure when it comes to inflation. People may say, 'Does it really matter because they're getting the money?' But it also puts huge pressure in private industry. When I've spoken to those in construction, they say they now must compete with the CFMEU worksites where they're getting these ridiculous amounts of money, so, for those other construction workers, their costs go up. When it comes to mums and dads buying houses or a commercial project, it just becomes so very expensive.

Another example was the Berwicktrain station. I know the Labor Party doesn't like us talking about train stations and upgrades, but I do note that the state Labor members went and tried to claim the glory for the train station carpark. It was opposed at a federal level, but they tried to celebrate it at the state Labor level. Again, that blew out from $15 million to $64 million of taxpayers' money. I do note that that included a bus drop off and pick up, but that is still an incredible amount. When you went to Maroondah Council, I believe it would be, the Mitcham carpark was constructed for under $15 million. Why? Because the council built it and didn't have all the CFMEU et cetera involved.

Some other great projects we did get involved in are upgrading 36 kilometres in each direction of the Monash Freeway, which is so important, and also other upgrades right across the La Trobe electorate. There's one, though, that was really disappointing, and that was Wellington Road. I first committed funding to the duplication of Wellington Road from Clematis going right back into Glen Fern Road—can I just say, it's a single lane in each direction. There have been so many serious car accidents over the years, and I actually lost my seat in 2010. My last letter was to the now Prime Minister Albanese, when he was transport minister, and it said, 'Do not allow this funding to go away.' It was for overtaking lanes there. Guess what? He diverted the funding. I must admit, it was at the request of Yarra Ranges Shire Council, but that funding should never have been diverted.

Again, back under the Morrison government, we recommitted $110 million for the duplication of the entire freeway. I shouldn't say freeway. It's one lane in each direction. In say that, too, this time we had the cost estimates put together by Knox City Council, Casey City Council, Cardinia Shire Council and Yarra Ranges Shire Council. Knox City Council worked on costs if you're trying to duplicate the road in a high impact area where it's got traffic lights and telephone poles, but it had none of that. Most of it's just bush. That blew out amazingly from $110 million under state Labor to $900 million, and, to my great annoyance, the Albanese government removed that entire $110 million because they said the project couldn't go ahead.

So we are going to have serious accidents and fatal accidents for years to come, but my biggest concern—and I've said this so many times—is that there's going to be a bushfire out that way. People may not be aware, but in 1983 we had the Ash Wednesday bushfires where the township of Cockatoo was decimated as were many parts of the Dandenong Ranges and also down at the Belgrave South area, which is no longer in La Trobe but in Casey. For residents living in areas in La Trobe like Cockatoo, Emerald and Gembrook, their major escape route away would be Wellington Road. If there's a car accident while people are trying to leave—and there's probably 15,000 residents—there are two directions they can go. They can either go south towards Pakenham or go east. It obviously depends on what way a fire's going, but if a fire comes from Bunyip Way, and there's a crash on that freeway—also, the Ash Wednesday fires devastated Belgrave South—residents would be trapped in that area. We saw that in the Black Saturday fires with those residents escaping Kinglake West where they had one car and ended up having a crash. The other cars went in behind and, tragically, a number of people died. So, again, eventually there will be a fire there and, sadly, if there's an accident and the road is blocked off there'll be a lot of casualties there.

When it comes to residents in La Trobe, they've been doing it very tough. We announced back in 2019 work on the children's emergency department at Casey Hospital. It still isn't finished. I think it's started and the work is now supposed to be completed in another two years. I make this point. I spoke to Rob Evans today. Sadly, his daughter Liv took her life. She suffered from an eating disorder. That was the point he was making to me—to make sure hospitals in the south-east are treating children for eating disorders so that what occurred with his daughter, Liv, never occurs to any other children. So, again, we obviously support the bill when it comes to the appropriation.

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