Regional Rail Link

 I rise to express support for long-suffering commuters from the communities of Geelong, Bendigo, Altona, Werribee and many other places that have suffered during the commencement of the regional rail link project, but in particular the people of Ballarat. I want to express support and ask a single question, a question for which the Greens want a proper answer: why are successive governments in Victoria so bad at implementing major public transport infrastructure projects?

First I will provide a bit of context. Regional rail link was a $3.65 billion joint federal-state project comprising 90 kilometres of new track constructed to separate the metropolitan railway lines from regional lines to Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat. This was an iconic project intended to accommodate an extra 54 000 commuters per day and liberate the metropolitan train system from the rail bottleneck in the inner west of Melbourne, which would increase reliability and capacity. The project seemed to progress well. It seemed to deliver. In fact it received several awards, including the 2015 Gold Quill Award for Excellence in Community Relations and the 2015 Australian Construction Achievement Award. I am sure these were wonderful, champagne-popping moments. The Labor government was dancing with the stars. It kicked the project off in 2008. The project then went over to the coalition government in 2010, and now a new Labor government has brought regional rail over the finish line on time and within budget. Wonderful stuff — but wait, there is more. What about the commencement of the new services?

In early 2015 the new Labor government revealed that the commencement of services would be delayed as there was not enough rolling stock. Concerns were raised about commuter chaos due to a lack of trains to at least maintain service levels. That is right: a $3.65 billion investment intended to provide a massive boost to capacity and reliability, and concerns were being raised about maintenance of previous service levels. If it was not so serious, it would be a very bad joke.

On 26 February this year, in the other place, the Minister for Public Transport confirmed that there would be an eight-week delay in commencement because the government could not guarantee there would not be problems. Within days of the commencement in June outraged commuters in Ballarat were dealing with overcrowding from shortened trains. In fact the overcrowding is so bad and commuters are standing for so long that people have taken to sitting on the floor of trains as a way of trying to get some sort of rest from having to stand for so long on their journeys. Reports of delays and unreliability across the system abound. Commuters wonder if these are just teething problems or there is something else going on.

Earlier this week the Premier said:

… a series of small but important changes has stabilised the performance of Ballarat services. Punctuality ran at 85.4 per cent in August, up slightly from the previous month.

That is simply not good enough in terms of a target you should be aiming for. Imagine if I said to my staffers, 'Just get to work on time 85.4 per cent of the time'. Imagine if I set a benchmark for myself that I will arrive in this chamber on behalf of my constituents 85.4 per cent of the time. Imagine if I said to my son, of his efforts in school, 'Just put in 85.4 per cent of effort'. It is simply not good enough, and it is a stark reminder of how this regional rail link is failing commuters, given that one year ago the punctuality rates were 93.5 per cent.

Following this, more responses started coming in. An explanation was given for the bottleneck created by the convergence of the Geelong line with the Bendigo and Ballarat lines at Footscray. There has been a $3.65 billion investment to avoid bottlenecks, yet we have timetabling chaos because of a lack of rolling stock and the creation of a new bottleneck. Now the people of Ballarat are asking for a return to the previous timetable, which was a timetable that worked. People who rely on public transport to commute from Ballarat to Melbourne every day are desperate for a reliable system.

Many people are forced to drive from Geelong to Werribee or catch a bus and wait for another train, due to the severing of the connection between Geelong and Werribee, and between Geelong and all the railway stations on the pre-existing line east of Werribee before Footscray. People have been stranded in Altona due to other timetabling problems. People have been stranded along the Werribee line because of a massive reduction in metropolitan services due to the previous Geelong to Melbourne trains no longer servicing metropolitan stations. There has been timetabling chaos, which is due to two problems: a shortage of rolling stock, and a failure to properly plan.

Who forgot to order the rolling stock to run on the new system? It was both major parties. Labor forgot to include the additional rolling stock in the original planning for the project; and the Liberals, who hate spending money on public transport, did not do anything about it.

We highlighted this some time ago. In January 2013 Mr Barber, the Victorian Greens leader, said:

People are crying out for much more frequent V/line services. But we can see in black and white that it can't happen without a bigger government investment …

We will see in the May budget if the Baillieu government will listen to V/Line's advice or fail Victorians.

Since Ted Baillieu took charge, there's been no expansion of public transport for regional Victoria. Passenger numbers keep growing, but service levels don't.

Mr Barber was referring to the V/Line initial strategic operations plan from 10 November 2011, which indicated that the Baillieu government had not ordered enough trains to meet demand. There we have it. I do not want to say, 'We told you so', but we told you so when we told you so back in January 2013.

Mr Ramsay — Don't say it.

Ms DUNN — I said it.

Back to my question: why are successive governments in Victoria so bad at implementing public transport infrastructure projects? There is too much secrecy and no clear plan. It is a lack of public scrutiny that causes the problems. If the original business case and budget for the regional rail link had been subject to expert independent scrutiny, it would have been revealed that a lack of rolling stock and the forward planning needed to order the rolling stock was a critical issue.

It is a scenario that is played out repeatedly. I invite members to think again about myki. The Auditor-General reported earlier this year that too much secrecy over the original business case and the project scoping documents was the root of the problem. Secrecy and silos cause gaps and blind spots in public infrastructure project management. You do not need a highly paid consultant to understand this; you just need to think clearly.

A lack of public scrutiny of core project planning and management documentation stops the accountability of government. It stops the community from commenting on difficulties, gaps and project shortfalls. It interrupts the democratic process and leaves communities angry about not being consulted or considered. It stops independent experts from having input and improving projects for everyone's benefit to get absolutely the best value for public expenditure. It happens time and again, and it is happening right now.

It is happening on the high-capacity signalling trial. It is happening on level crossing removals, it is happening on the Melbourne Metro rail project, the western distributor proposal and the port rail shuttle project, just to name a few. The story is the same — the foundation documents on all these projects are kept out of the public eye and competence in the management and delivery of the projects is compromised.

The Greens will continue to stand up for the standard of public transport that the people of Victoria expect in order to ensure that public transport is reliable, and to push for a standard of public transport that should see public transport as a real and convenient alternative to private car travel. We will not give up. We will hold all governments to account on public transport and we will not give up on service delivery in relation to those poor commuters on the regional rail link.