2016-07-23
MR BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — I will try to provide Ms Pulford with some material in addition to what she was going to have. A number of speakers have already now raised the somewhat tangential issue, which is that as a result of closing down the Rural Finance Corporation of Victoria, the money ended up getting spent on a big project sometimes called the Murray Basin rail project. Since that has already been brought into debate I might just say a little bit about that.
Just to cover off in terms of the mechanics of the bill itself, the Greens will support this bill. As others have said, it creates a new body that deals with the residual functions of the Rural Finance Corporation of Victoria. What I think confused me and a few others — it took us a while to understand what was exactly going on with this bill — is the creation of a new office called the Rural Assistance Commissioner. But this is not going to be a commissioner with the function of helping farmers with rural assistance. Good luck ringing up this dude or even finding them in the phonebook and saying, 'I need some assistance', because this office will not provide assistance to farmers. In fact it will provide assistance to the government on how to keep on dealing with the commonwealth government and also on how to deal with the new private entities that will be running, on a community service obligation basis, a couple of other functions. So that has left some of us a bit confused as to why a new commissioner office will be created and who will fill it. Will there even be a commissioner, or will it simply be an office perhaps filled by someone who already performs another function in government? But this is a necessary bill and so we are supporting that aspect of it.
I was interested though in the discussion that we started to have about the expansion of the funds from this sale and wind-up into the Murray Basin rail project. Ms Bath on behalf of the National Party said that when it put the funds into the Murray Basin rail project it had the potential to provide passenger services. I think the word was 'potential' or 'an option' or something. Well, I have the potential to win TattsLotto. I am absolutely ready, willing and able to receive those funds if I do happen to get first division, but I am not counting on it anytime soon. That is a bit of a shame because the return of passenger services between Mildura and Maryborough I think is something that needs better attention.
As a youngster I took the train up there, got off at Hattah station and went hiking out through the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park — I was probably about 17 at the time — and I want to do it again. Before I go to my grave I want to take the train back to Mildura; in fact I want to do it soon. That is why I have been trying to find out through asking questions in this house and through reading the relevant documents whether, when or how we can expect to get passenger services back on that line. I know we are getting new rails, I know we are getting new sleepers, I know it will increase the speed and weight capacity of that line and I know the government is doing a huge amount of work on designing that service, but I cannot find any skerrick of information anywhere that suggests it is examining how it will re-implement passenger services. This was a promise made to Russell Savage going back as far as 1999 when he supported the incoming Bracks government. What we got in the dying days of that government was a feasibility study that said it was all a waste of time and there was no point doing it. The study was extremely biased in its assumptions and seemed to fly in the face of every other passenger rail project that has been put together in this state and elsewhere, which of course have gone gangbusters.
I know that there is a significant number of people who are organising themselves up along that line between Maryborough and Mildura to campaign for the return of those train services. There are a whole series of small towns all along the way that are trying to point out to this government, as they tried to point out to the Liberals and The Nationals, that the enormous mobility benefits that will come from passenger services, the tourism benefits, the savings in the pockets of travellers and the broader vision that we must have for northern Victoria, north-west Victoria and western Victoria in terms of returning passenger services all add up to the kind of benefits that were never considered in the Mildura rail study.
When you read this set of studies the only mention of passenger services is as a possible impediment to the running of freight trains. There is nothing in there that suggests the government is planning what rolling stock it would need for passenger services, what frequency it would need to run or what rail patterns — train timetable patterns — would permit both rail and freight to occur. As far as I am aware — and the Minister for Regional Development can correct me when she gets up and speaks — there is no assessment of the condition of stations occurring along the way, what it would take to get those back up to a passenger standard, nor any of the other matters that would go with the normal planning for the return of passenger services being addressed. In other words, the potential is nothing more than that. I fear that the potential is in fact being blocked out as this process continues because — as it is with major project delivery agencies — it is deliver or die for the project they have been given. They do not stop to question and they do not like anyone else stopping them to question their project. If the government is not putting those questions in the mix, then I can guarantee they are being left out of it.
I am looking forward to taking the opportunity to travel back up through that region again one day soon and talk to some of my new Facebook friends from the various groups who have been lobbying very hard. They have struggled to even get meetings with some of the local Labor MPs, let alone the Minister for Public Transport, but I am looking forward to meeting them soon and I am looking forward to bringing some of their vision for their area back to the city and explaining to Melburnians why passenger rail to all of our country areas is an old idea that is becoming new again. That is in fact a very important part of the changes that are occurring to those rural economies.
Apart from that issue, which of course is not specifically provided for in the legislation but which was raised by speakers from both the Liberal Party and The Nationals, as I said earlier, the Greens will support this bill for the necessary changes that it makes.
To access full speeches and debates please visit http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/hansard where you can search Victorian Hansard publications from 1991 onwards.