Star Weekly reporter Charlene Macaulay was granted exclusive access to the Premier. He answers her questions below.
The perception in the west, real or not, is that Coalition governments ignore the west as it had traditionally been a Labor heartland. What is your response to that?
My response is the St Albans level crossing. For 11 years Labor was in office, and that was the most dangerous crossing in Victoria – probably the most dangerous in Australia – in Labor heartland, and they did nothing about it.
We’ve been in for just over three years, and we’ve committed funding in this year’s budget to fix it. And not only fix it, we were advised to look at building rail over road as a cheaper option, and we said no to that.
Regional Rail Link is another. The biggest rail project in Victoria’s history, a $4.7 billion project, and it’s in Melbourne’s west.
While it’s called the Regional Rail Link … other beneficiaries are the western suburbs and north-western suburbs, because when you take the V/Line services off those lines, you actually create opportunity to increase the number of Metro services from Williamstown, Werribee and Sunbury.
We’ve put on more Metro services since we’ve been in government, and we’re going to have the opportunity with Regional Rail to increase the number of Metro services even further.
Another example of delivering for the west is PSOs on the stations. That significantly improves safety at the stations and the car parks around them. We’re also committed to the East Werribee Employment Precinct, which is going to be a massive job creator and will revolutionise employment so that, whether you live in Truganina or Wyndham Vale or Werribee, you’re more likely to get a job locally, because there will be 58,000 ne will be jobs of the 21st century.
As part of that, we are spending money on Sneydes Road.
The Labor Party treats the western suburbs with contempt, because they’re safe seats for Labor, so it tends to take them for granted.
We’re out there actually creating jobs, improving the infrastructure, and delivering for the western suburbs.
In last year’s budget, we provided funding for new schools at Melton, Wyndham Vale and Truganina. We built the special school at Laverton, again, an area neglected under the previous government. I’m proud that we’ve done those things for the west.
The 2013-14 state budget is being handed down this week. What’s in it for the west?
The Tullamarine Freeway widening is definitely a feature of the budget.
It’s a great program, [creating] 700 new jobs, and really important in terms of, if you go back to 2000, there were 70,000 vehicles a day using the Tullamarine Freeway, now it’s 150,000.
That’s a massive increase, causing congestion and gridlock, and this program will increase the number of lanes, so there will be a significant reduction in congestion, significant improvement in traffic flows, and a massive improvement in productivity and efficiency.
Another [improvement] will be the removal of the level crossing at St Albans. This will be over $200 million and it will be lowering the rail line there at St Albans. We’ll lower the rail line and we’ll build a new premium station, a fantastic new station with all the facilities.
There is a $24.5 million fund for Ford workers losing their jobs. There’s also Toyota in Altona, which is shutting down in coming years – what are you doing to create job opportunities in the west?
I think the big thing is the East Werribee Employment Precinct, that’s a clear policy of ours. It’s a unique piece of land where the State Research Farm used to be, right in the heart of Werribee, close to the Princes Highway.
While there will be 7000 residences there, there will be 58,000 jobs, and it’s very much building on the fact that you have the Werribee Mercy Hospital there, you’ve got quite a health precinct around that, you’ve got a tertiary education precinct built up around that area, so this is about high-tech jobs, high-skilled jobs for Melbourne’s west.
Traffic congestion in and out of Wyndham is a big issue. People are spending up to two hours driving to and from the city. What are the plans to ease that congestion?
Firstly, when you’ve got the Regional Rail Link, you’ll take V/Line trains off the Werribee line, and that will free up more capacity for train services.
Also, the [Metro] train service will be more reliable, they won’t be stuck behind V/Line trains.
So we’ll get better punctuality, better reliability, and we’ll get more services out of Werribee. It will give people the option of using the train services out of Werribee, Altona and Williamstown.
As Racing Minister, do you have any plans to redevelop Werribee Racing Club? The community doesn’t want it turned into yet another housing estate. Can you guarantee its long-term survival?
The Werribee Racing Club certainly has an important role to play in our racing industry. It has been developed into a quarantine centre, so international horses are based at Werribee during the Spring Racing Carnival, which has given it a very important role and creates significant local jobs.
Having that quarantine centre has guaranteed the future of the racecourse, because there were some threats under the previous government about closing the racecourse down.
While there have been problems with the track, they’ve largely now been resolved, so we see a very important future at Werribee as a racing centre as well. There will be ongoing regular race meetings there as well.
Just to confirm, can you guarantee the Werribee Racing Club’s long-term survival?
Yes, you can guarantee it, because we need the quarantine centre.
Truck traffic in the inner west, particularly in Footscray and Yarraville, is a major problem. Labor has promised to put in a West Gate distributor to alleviate this problem. What are the Coalition’s plans to tackle this issue?
The budget includes funding for stage two of the east-west link.
That will provide a second crossing of the Maribyrnong River, that will provide a
direct link from Footscray Road, it will be an elevated road over Footscray Road, through Footscray, Sunshine and directly onto the Western Ring Road.
People coming from Melton, Ballarat, Geelong, Wyndham Vale and Werribee will have choices about which way to go into town. They can go on the West Gate, or they can go on the Ring Road a little bit and then come in on the east-west link.
Because this will go straight past the top of Swanson Dock, trucks coming out of the port will go straight onto east-west link, and go to either the east or west.
Not one of those trucks will go through Yarraville or Seddon or Footscray.
This will take thousands of trucks off Whitehall Street, off Moore Street, off Francis Street – this will be the best thing for Yarraville and Seddon and Footscray in 100
