Michael Sukkar MP

Constituency Statement: Infrastructure

Despite Labor welcoming 1.5 million migrants into Australia over the next five years without any plan on how to house these people, we are seeing this government make even more poor decisions and savage cuts to infrastructure projects throughout Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, particularly in my electorate of Deakin. For anyone across the country who’s having to deal with road issues, congestion, a lack of parking and traffic bottlenecks, it’s about to get a whole lot worse under this government when Labor not only implements its 1.5 million Big Australia policy but presumably goes forward with the cuts that it is threatening to local infrastructure projects.

In my electorate of Deakin, there are a range of projects that they either have cancelled or are threatening to cancel. The first is the Ringwood Station Carpark. I committed funding to 482 parking spaces at Ringwood Station. You cannot get parking after seven o’clock in the morning. There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to get on the train and get to work and arriving at the station without parking. Labor is now threatening to pull the funding for this multi-level car park at Ringwood Station. Planning and zoning have been progressed by Maroondah City Council, who have worked very closely with me in utilising that funding. In the end, the Labor Party now are threatening the residents of Ringwood with being unable to utilise Ringwood Station and get parking in the morning. So we call on the Labor Party to backtrack on the threat of these cuts.

We’ve also seen threats to cut the $50 million of funding for Canterbury Road to add a lane both inbound and outbound. Everybody who lives near Canterbury Road in Bayswater North, Kilsyth South and Croydon South knows that the traffic congestion on Canterbury Road is already at breaking point with more than 30,000 vehicles a day. I call on Labor again: do not go ahead with the cancellation of this project. A small but important project they’re also threatening to cancel is the intersection upgrade of Tortice Drive and Warrandyte Road. It is a very dangerous and congested intersection in the morning for residents of North Ringwood. It’s $4.8 million dollars, and the Labor Party is threatening to cancel this, even though the work is ready to commence. Sadly, they’ve already confirmed the cancellation of the $50 million upgrade to Dorset Road in Croydon for road widening, fixing turning lanes, removal of open drains—can you believe it, in metropolitan Melbourne?—and fixing potholes. So we call again on the Labor Party to reinstate that coalition $50 million commitment to Dorset Road. We know the Labor Party has absolute contempt for the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and these planned and threatened cuts just confirm that.

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