2016-10-12
Ms DUNN (Eastern Metropolitan) — I rise today to speak to Mr Davis's motion 319 in relation to the Punt Road Public Acquisition Overlay Advisory Committee. There is no doubt that the Greens support this notice of motion submitted by Mr Davis. Indeed I moved a similar motion with similar intent in August this year, which has appeared on our notice paper. That motion had a date of 30 August attached to it in terms of presenting documents to be tabled to council. It is well past 30 August and we still have not seen those documents. So I am getting a little sense of groundhog day in relation to this issue, and perhaps to some others as well.
I also note that my colleague in the other place Sam Hibbins, the member for Prahran, has also moved a motion with similar intent in that place and has requested a copy of that final report under the Freedom of Information Act 1982. However, that request is still to be fulfilled. This report was due to be delivered to the Minister for Planning in April this year. The Minister for Planning has been sitting on the report for months, and the residents near the road have not been notified as to the recommendations in the report.
I also want to refer to the briefing provided to us by Minister Wynne's staff, and we thank those representatives for meeting with the Greens and talking through some of the issues, one of which was in relation to what I will call the hybrid option, a recommendation by the panel to explore a different option. The Greens have very specific views in relation to any options in that we believe there should not be an acquisition overlay. In fact there should be an entirely different approach to managing traffic in that area.
However, setting that aside, it is important that the community understand what is in that report and what is contemplated in that report. I think if there is a genuineness around understanding community needs, then you actually have to be open and transparent with the community in terms of what you might or might not be proposing for them. It is a concern that there is an option in there that the community are not aware of. I completely understand that there is a process involved in VicRoads evaluating other options in terms of their impact on traffic modelling, but that does not mean that the community should be treated with contempt by not having that information available to them. It is very important that the community are taken on the journey and the community are part of the consultative process. These matters should be revealed to the community, so we are very concerned about that.
The Punt Road acquisition overlay has been in place for over 60 years. It is to reserve land for the purpose of widening Punt Road to become a six-lane highway cutting through the community of South Yarra. Widening Punt Road would be expensive, with a price tag of at least $500 million, destructive — 130 properties would be bulldozed, including homes and heritage buildings — and pointless. A widened road would simply induce demand and lead to a 65 per cent increase in traffic with only negligible improvement in travel times.
Think of what could be done with a budget of $500 million in terms of relieving traffic congestion in that region and in the inner city. You could certainly start with improving the 246 bus service. There are options to create an inner-city orbital route, which of course would allow people to travel across the city in the inner city. It is very difficult to do so at the moment. Those sorts of orbital routes simply do not exist in a seamless, SmartBus-type service, so people are forced to get into their cars because there are no other options. An inner-city orbital road of course could have enormous benefits, linking Elsternwick to Punt Road, Hoddle Street to Clifton Hill and Brunswick Road to Moonee Ponds station and Footscray station. In fact it would provide an arc of transport across that inner ring of Melbourne. You could certainly apply that $500 million price tag to something that has far more benefit into the future than a six-lane road through South Yarra would create.
Looking at that pool of money, you could modernise the bus stops and include real-time displays as part of upgrades to public transport to make public transport a user-friendly option for people. There are far better options available. We know that Punt Road and the surrounding area is not just a road that people drive through that needs to be widened at all costs; it is a community where people live, they go to school, they play in parks and they visit family.
In terms of presenting documents to the house, it is the role of this house to scrutinise all manner of reports from government. The Greens believe in open and transparent processes. We also believe in the important role of scrutiny that this house provides. I certainly would like to think that the government will respond to the time lines in this motion, but I do not have much faith in that, given it has not responded to either my motion or that of Mr Hibbins in the other place requesting similar documents. It is well beyond time that the state government come clean to the community of South Yarra and release the Punt Road acquisition overlay committee report. The Minister for Planning must make a commitment to the people of South Yarra, Prahran and Windsor that the widening will not proceed — not now, not ever. What we say is that this overlay should be removed once and for all, providing the certainty that those communities need in terms of the future direction of their local neighbourhood.