The 2013-14 state budget is being handed down this week. What’s in it for the west and north?
The Tullamarine Freeway widening is definitely a feature of the budget. It’s a great program – 700 new jobs – and really important in terms of, if you go back to 2000, there were 70,000 vehicles a day using the Tullamarine Freeway; now it’s 150,000. That’s a massive increase, causing congestion and gridlock, and this program will increase the number of lanes, so there will be a significant reduction in congestion, significant improvement in traffic flows, and a massive improvement in productivity and efficiency. .
Another [improvement] will be removal of the level crossing at St Albans. This will cost over $200 million and it will be lowering the rail line there at St Albans. We’ll lower the line and build a new premium station, a fantastic new station with all the facilities.
We’ll also relocate the bus interchange so it’s closer to the station, so you get better links between the buses and the trains. The current train stabling that’s at St Albans station will move out to Calder Park. That will free up some space there and improve car parking.
This will be a really significant boost in
St Albans… massive improvements in terms of safety, and we’ve had two tragedies and fatalities there in recent years. It will significantly reduce the congestion. You’ve got the boom gates down 40 minutes every two hours in the morning, and you’ve got the traffic lights and you’ve got people turning left and right, and it’s an absolute dog’s breakfast.
We’ve [also] announced that we will be putting in the airport rail link, and that will use the corridor to Albion and then across the Jacana freight rail corridor to the airport. Again that will create lots of jobs in that region but also provide a direct link to the airport and a number of the services.
What are the timelines for the St Albans level crossing, and the relocation of the Melbourne wholesale fruit and vegetable market to Epping?
We would hope the fruit and veg market opens either late this year or early next year. A lot of the work has been done there.
The St Albans level crossing work will start towards the end of this year and be completed by 2017. It’s a challenging engineering project to drop that rail line..
What about the level crossing on Furlong Road, which is just down the road from the St Albans level crossing and is equally notorious? Are there any plans for that level crossing?
I’ll get back to you on that. What we’ve done is either removed, or are in the process of removing, 23 level crossings across Melbourne in the past three years. We’ve got another 10 that we’re pre-planning, so I’ll check if Furlong Road is one of those. A lot of these level crossings not only had the crossing, they also often had intersections nearby, traffic lights – the sort of thing you tear your hair out over. You’d be stuck at a red light and as soon as the red went green, the boom gates would come down and, unfortunately, we’ve had people try and sneak around boom gates, pedestrians trying to run across in front of the train with often tragic results.
The perception in the west, real or not, is that coalition governments ignore the west as it has traditionally been a Labor heartland. What is your response to that?
My response is St Albans level crossing. For 11 years Labor was in office and that was the most dangerous crossing in Victoria – probably the most dangerous in Australia – in Labor heartland, and they did nothing about it. We’ve been in for just over three years, and we’ve committed funding in this year’s budget to fix it. And not only fix it, we were advised to look at building rail over road as a cheaper option and we said no to that. We wanted the best result for the people of St Albans and the west.
Regional Rail Link is another. The biggest rail project in Victoria’s history, a $4.7 billion project, and it’s in Melbourne’s west. While it’s called the Regional Rail Link, other beneficiaries are the western and north-western suburbs because when you take the V/Line services off those lines, you actually create opportunity to increase the number of Metro services from Williamstown, Werribee and Sunbury. We’ve put on more Metro services since we’ve been in government, and we’re going to have the opportunity with Regional Rail to increase the number of Metro services even further.
Another example of delivering for the west is PSOs on the stations. That significantly improves safety at the stations and the car parks around them.
The Labor Party, I think, treat the western suburbs with contempt because they’re safe seats for Labor, so they tend to take them for granted. We’re out there actually creating jobs, improving infrastructure and delivering for the western suburbs. In last year’s budget, we provided funding for new schools at Melton, Wyndham Vale and Truganina. We built the special school at Laverton, again, an area neglected under the previous government. I think the people there need to question their allegiance to the Labor Party, because while Labor talk about things, we actually do them.
The brutal stabbing in Sunshine last month saw an outpouring of community support. In terms of family violence, what can be done to prevent these kinds of attacks?
These are challenges for our whole community. We as a government have significantly increased funding to tackle family violence. We’re spending a lot of money working with groups that assist victims of family violence. We’re also spending significant money dealing with perpetrators; I believe that if you want to prevent family violence then you need to work with men who have a tendency to be violent and help them deal with their behaviour.
Will the state government fund a 24-hour police station in Caroline Springs?
The government will continue to monitor police services in growth communities and will consider any proposals put forward by Victoria Police and the chief commissioner.
Will councillors be re-elected to Brimbank City Council in March next year as planned?
The Minister for Local Government is meeting with Brimbank residents in response to their concerns about the potential waste of council rates if two elections are held within 18 months. .If the minister feels any extension of the commissioners’ term is justified, he will bring a submission to Cabinet to draft legislation to then be debated.
