Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like the member for Gellibrand, I had enormous pleasure in attending the opening of the Regional Rail Link on Sunday, a project that was jointly conducted by both Labor governments federally and at a state level, a $3.9 billion project. As the member for Gellibrand said, it is the largest public transport infrastructure project in our country's history, a project which employed 15,000 Australians in the building of it. The train line from Geelong to Melbourne, which people are still on until next Sunday, was opened in 1857.

What the Regional Rail Link means is that, for the first time in 158 years, there is now a new train line from Geelong to Melbourne. It is a revolution. That revolution is principally in the degree of frequency that we will now see of trains on that train line. When I meet constituents at train stations, people are often finding that they are having to stand on trains from Geelong to Melbourne. They are often driving away from Melbourne to get the early seats on those trains. Sometimes they take the slower trains to get those seats. This is going to see 200 new services every week between Geelong and Melbourne at 10-minute intervals during the peak period and 20 minutes during weekdays. This is a revolution for Geelong commuters to Melbourne. It is a great Labor achievement.