Zoe McKenzie (Flinders, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Mornington Peninsula deserves better public transport, particularly its rail network. The Mornington Peninsula's population increased by almost 25,000 people over the decade between 2011 and 2021. The number of visitors to our great part of Victoria continues to climb each year. In fact, 6.4 million day-trippers visited the peninsula between March 2022 and March 2023. With this kind of growth, and as a local government area still confoundingly classified as metropolitan Melbourne, we are served by below-average public transport. Bus rides are infrequent and lengthy, and our passenger rail line is serviced by the only diesel train across the entire Melbourne metropolitan network.

The peninsula needs upgraded rail network to better connect it to the employment and education opportunities and the services outside our not-so-metropolitan region. Greg Hunt and Chris Crewther, the then members for Flinders and Dunkley respectively, secured $225 million to contribute towards the extension of the metro line from Frankston to Baxter. At the time it seemed there was a united ticket on the need for this critical infrastructure investment in my area. At that time, the Prime Minister, when he was the shadow infrastructure minister, stood up in 2018 promising to deliver the electrification of the line faster. He said in his press release:

Labor Will Deliver Frankston to Baxter Rail Upgrade.

Federal Labor is an advocate of the electrification and duplication of the Stony Point Line to Baxter to improve train services for commuters across Dunkley and on the Mornington Peninsula.

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Currently thousands of Dunkley and Peninsula residents drive and park at Frankston, Kananook or Seaford stations because the Metro line service ends at Frankston.

A Federal Labor Government will electrify and duplicate the track to Baxter, giving commuters better access to high quality public transport and park-and-ride options.

Local people went to the ballot box in 2019 with this promise in their mind. But, elected, once again that promise was nowhere to be seen, before it was axed altogether and the money was snatched away from the peninsula as part of last year's 200-day infrastructure review.

Thankfully, the coalition cares about this magnificent part of Australia. Before we returned to Canberra this year, the coalition committed to connect the Mornington Peninsula to better public transport infrastructure. I recently joined the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, senators Bridget McKenzie and Jane Hume, and the exceptional Liberal candidate for Dunkley, Nathan Conroy, to announce a federal coalition government would provide $900 million for the electrification of the metro rail line from Frankston to Baxter. This would connect the Frankston Hospital and Monash University to an efficient rail service, bettering health and education accessibility for our region. A further stop at Langwarrin and an upgraded station at Baxter, with options for park and ride, will remove cars from the road, reducing traffic, helping ease congestion and giving my constituents just a little of what they deserve.