2016-02-24
Ms DUNN (Eastern Metropolitan) — I rise to speak to Mr Davis’s motion. Certainly this has captured the attention of many in the community, particularly those directly affected by the works proposed in relation to the elevated rail on the Cranbourne-Pakenham line. In relation to the documents motion, it is that, and of course there are a number of different elements of what that might be contained within Mr Davis’s motion. And it appears to me from talking to hundreds of people around this — Greens MPs in the region have also spoken to many, many people around this issue — that there is a lack of information in the public domain, and that is causing an enormous amount of angst in the community because they simply cannot get the answers to the questions that they are asking. That really goes to the consultative process that is being used, but there will perhaps be an opportunity for me to talk more about that in relation to a later motion that is coming before this house.
In talking to those people, they are not necessarily against the proposal, they are not necessarily for the proposal. They actually want to know more about the proposal. I think this documents motion goes a long way to answering some of those questions, and some of the key issues that have come up in conversations I have had are generally the lack of detailed information in relation to traffic flow and modelling. People are very concerned about the impacts of the proposal on local traffic — what that will mean to them — and it seems at this point in time they cannot get their hands on any information about what that looks like, and of course that causes them angst.
They are concerned about the visual amenity of the elevated rail proposal and the fact that there is very little modelling, evidence or data apart from some glossy corflutes and electronic videos. There is nothing really in great detail to give them assurances about how the impacts on their amenity will be resolved. There have certainly been concerns around the crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) elements of the program.
It is really critical that that is part of a major project like this, because people want to be assured that we have actually looked at what is known as the CPTED program and that any major project like that is in fact going to take into account crime prevention and look at really good quality urban design in terms of preventing crime into the future.
People are concerned about the construction of the open space under the elevated rail. They want to know who is paying for it, they want to know what it looks like and they want to know who is going to maintain it. They do not particularly want their rates to be paying for it, because they know that their councils are already under the pump anyway in terms of the amount of budget they are going to have. Many, many people who spoke to me were concerned about the cycle paths and the lack of connectivity in relation to the elevated rail proposal. There do not appear to be any detailed reports available to the community about how that design was come to. There are many concerns from cyclists who have to, in many places along that rail corridor, dismount their bicycles and walk through activity centres. So given this lack of connectivity it would be good to see how the proponents came up with that design proposal as the best outcome, but at the moment there is no evidence being presented to the community around that. Of course that is leading to frustration and angst once again.
There has been no detail in relation to car park studies for elevated rail and what the proposal will mean in relation to car parking, and that goes to how much of this open space will in fact be dedicated to car parking and not the other things that we see as part of the glossy, computer-aided, videoed presentation. People are concerned about the integration with bus services, but there is no evidence being presented in the public domain yet about the notion of better integration with bus services — and that is not just about saying, ‘Yes, we’ll have a bus interchange’; it is about saying, ‘How do we actually get people onto buses, leaving the car in the driveway and fully integrating with this service?’.
There is no evidence for the community and no detailed reporting for the community so they can see whether these things have been taken into account. I can understand the community’s angst, because it is an important project and it will be significant in the region. People are not silly; people actually like to see the detail of what is being proposed in their area. They want to understand that every element has been thought of in some detail and understand how this position was got to. At the moment that is lacking — the community does not understand that. I have had many people express concerns to me about the lack of landscape planning available in the public domain too, so not only do they not know what vegetation is being removed, they do not know what vegetation is being replanted either, and that goes again to the maintenance of that vegetation into the longer term.
There is no doubt that this information should be in the public domain. Good consultation is an open and transparent conversation with the community, and we are not seeing that at the moment. The Greens will be supporting this motion because we think that it goes to an open and transparent government. We think the house has a responsibility to operate as a house of review in relation to major projects like this and we have a role in relation to scrutiny of projects like this that have enormous public interest. With that, I can say again that the Greens will be supporting this documents motion.