Member for Morwell Russell Northe’s request for answers from Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan on when train services on the Gippsland line will improve has been dismissed by the state government as empty criticism.
In Mr Northe’s constituency question in Parliament on Tuesday, May 1, he asked the Labor government what benefits there would be for Gippsland commuters from a number of rail projects causing disruptions to the line.
The independent lower house MP said Gippsland commuters were battling with a “profound” level of frustration while “bearing the brunt” of other projects underway such as sky rail and level crossing removal.
“Are we going to see any benefit at the end of the day? Nobody in government has been able to state categorically, will travel times be reduced and if so, by how much?” Mr Northe said.
He said regular Gippsland commuters would “put up with” the disruptions and overcrowding of carriages if there was a significant benefit in the medium to long term from works underway.
“There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight,” Mr Northe said.
State member for Eastern Victoria Harriet Shing said since Labor came to power there had been record funding to enable more services to run and more trains to be built.
“Our investment of $530 million to upgrade the Gippsland line will also see delays and disruptions take place but this is because of the critical need to improve the reliability of our parts of the network,” Ms Shing said.
She said the government’s ultimate plan was to increase the number of services across the board in peak and off-peak periods.
“The investment we’ve made in signalling upgrades and removal of level crossings as well as negotiating a better deal for V/Line on the metropolitan network will ease congestion,” Ms Shing said.
“The bottom line is when Russell Northe was part of the Coalition government they did absolutely nothing to address the decades of neglect across the Gippsland line or to fund … upgrades for the metropolitan network.”
Mr Northe said he was supportive of the upgrades underway, yet believes standards on the Gippsland line have “gone backwards at a rate of knots”.
“To rub salt in the would … the state government recently announced $50 million to undertake work for Geelong fast rail,” he said.
“Surely they fix the Gippsland line first before they worry about a fast line for Geelong.”
