Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about a significant concern for my electorate of Dunkley. I refer to an article in yesterday's HeraldSunwhich mentions that Premier Daniel Andrews of the Victorian government 'won't rule out sky rail on Frankston line'. He said that a decision will be made 'quite soon'. I am very concerned that the Labor state government is not listening to the people. I should not have to get up here, as the federal member, to talk about what is, primarily, a state issue, but the state government is just not listening.

Let's look, for example, at what has happened at the Cranbourne-Dandenong line and the protests that continue around the state government's decisions on sky rail on that line. Even the local council have said they do not want to go ahead with rail over road at two level crossings at Frankston and Seaford, and they do not want one to go ahead because they want to remove the road that crosses the rail.

During my campaign I went to a number of different community events and community meetings on sky rail where hundreds of people turned up. Labor tried to deceive people months ago at the state level in Victoria, noting that they would not be doing sky rail. But all they ruled out was continuous sky rail between level crossings. They did not rule out going up, which is the residents' main concern. Labor also deceived people regarding the watertable making rail under road impossible, whereas engineers say it is possible and it has been done elsewhere.

Many concerns about sky rail have been raised with me by residents, in particular the privacy of their houses and their yards, particularly around their children. They also raised concerns about noise. There are Ramsar Convention concerns, which impact at a federal level as well, regarding the Seaford Wetlands. Inga Peulich, the state member for the South Eastern Metropolitan Region, has particularly raised these concerns. Other concerns include the loss of amenity and the ruining of the beauty of our bayside suburbs, particularly as, with cut and cover, you could even build a park or greater accessibility on top. The opposition leader in Victoria, Matthew Guy, said:

We have this government that wants to put dirty great big sky rails—elevated railway—which you would never do anywhere else in the world on your most visually beautiful parts of your city.

New York wouldn't do it on Long Island, the South of France wouldn't do it along the coast near Marseille.

Other issues have been raised, including the reduction in house prices, the harm to businesses and the economy, and the visual bulk, especially when you have the sky rail and then a train and then a gantry—the amount of metreage going up is atrocious. There is also the impact it would have on the service of freight trains and the impact to residents in terms of additional noise, as well as crime and graffiti. There is also a lack of future consideration, when, ideally, in the long run, like in most major cities around the world, we should be going underground. (Time expired)