The 2014-15 state budget is being handed down this week. What’s in it for the north?
The Tullamarine Freeway widening is definitely a feature of the budget. It’s a great program – 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. This program will increase the number of lanes so there will be a significant reduction in congestion, significant improvement in traffic flows and massive improvement in productivity and efficiency. People will get to work quicker and home from work quicker.
Towards the end of the year, one of the great things for the northern suburbs will be getting close to the opening of the new fruit and veg and flower market up there. It’s been a long time coming; it’s a project that we inherited from the previous government that was an absolute debacle and mess. It was underfunded, undercosted and didn’t have the support of the market community. We’ve worked hard to get that back on track .
The main fruit, vegie and flower sales area is now complete. We’re building warehousing and that will bring thousands of jobs into the north.
It will be a huge boost to the north, and we’ve already invested in improvements to Cooper Street to cope with that.
All of those things are part of the next generation of jobs growth in the north, and we’re seeing that time and time again. The north is a huge jobs generator. Indeed, the figures show there’s 18,000 more people employed in Melbourne’s north and north west now than there was three years ago.
There’s been significant jobs growth in that area. You’ve seen that with the increased patronage at the airport, and that’s why we’re not only doing the Tulla widening, but we’ve announced that we will be putting in the airport rail link, and that will use the corridor to Albion and then across the Jacana freight rail corridor to the airport, and again that will create lots of jobs in that region and provide a direct link to the airport.
A number of the services, while they’ll be express to Southern Cross [station], a number will stop at either Albion or Sunshine, or both. That will provide greater access for all those growing populations on that rail line.
And, of course, we’re seeing the new developments out there at Merrifields, over 1000 hectares, which is just a massive new suburb that will create opportunities for new housing, new businesses, new employment. Our vision is that people who live in the north … we want a lot of those people to work locally as well as live locally so they don’t have to come into the CBD for their job.
There’ll be a lot of jobs locally, whether it will be at the fruit and vegie market, whether it be in the construction industry; there’ll be a lot of employment in those areas.
It’s an exciting time for the north and
north west. We’re very committed to putting in those key projects.
Another one, which I think has flown under the radar, is we’re spending about $100 million to $110 million at Craigieburn on the new Metropolitan Fire Brigade emergency services training centre.
That is a fabulous facility where we’ll be providing absolutely state-of-the-art training for our fire brigade and other emergency services.
There are a lot of terrific things happening in that area, and that’s why, as we develop it, we have to build new schools and hospitals. The Northern Hospital – we’ve already spent nearly $25 million on the new emergency department and special-care nursery for infants who are ill. We’ve just announced, in last year’s budget,
$29 million for a new 32-bed, three-storey branch of the hospital.
What we’re seeing is investment in key infrastructure, like hospital services, like additional police and PSOs on the stations, and in schools out in that area to cater for the growing population. We’re not waiting for the population growth; were investing in the services and the infrastructure as the population grows and in advance of population growth.
We’re creating some of the interesting new jobs, particularly with Ford having made the decision not to continue vehicle manufacturing in Australia. We’ve created a $24.5 million fund for the northern suburbs to invest in new job opportunities. One we were at the other day was Koko Black, which produces some of the best chocolate. They’re going to spend quite a deal of money and we’ve assisted them with their co-investment in creating 102 new jobs at their new chocolate factory, which is going to be in the northern suburbs.
What are the timelines for the St Albans level crossing, and the fruit and vegetable market?
We would hope the market opens either late this year or early next year. A lot of the work has been done there.
The St Albans level crossing work will commence towards the end of this year and be completed by 2017. It’s quite a challenging engineering project to drop that rail line and work within the confines of a rail corridor. It’s going to take a fair bit of work, but it’s a great project.
The brutal stabbing in Sunshine last month saw an outflowing of community support. In terms of family violence, what can be done to prevent these kinds of attacks?
These are challenges for our whole community, and we as a government have significantly increased funding to tackle family violence. There’s certainly been a change in attitude in the community and police in treating family violence as a crime, as it should be.
There used to be a perception that what went on behind closed doors was their business, and now I think the attitude is that people have to stand up and speak out against family violence.
These are crimes, these are serious crimes, and need to be treated as such.
We’re spending a lot of money working with groups that assist victims of family violence so that they can have alternatives in terms of where they live and their future.
We’re also spending significant money dealing with perpetrators … that’s always controversial because there’s a lot of people who think money should only be spent on victims, but I believe that if you want to prevent family violence you need to work with men who have a tendency to be violent and help them deal with their behaviour to try and prevent it.
Will councillors be re-elected to Brimbank City Council in March next year as planned?
The Minister for Local Government is currently meeting with Brimbank residents and other ratepayers in response to their concerns about the potential waste of council rates if two elections are held within 18 months.
These concerns stem from the issue that the commissioners are due to hand over to newly elected councillors in March 2015 and the next general elections for all 79 Victorian councils are scheduled for October 2016, and
[they’re concerned] that the cost of holding the two elections is estimated to be over $1.3 million.
The minister will consider the views of the community and other relevant information. If he feels any extension of the commissioners’ term is justified, he will bring a submission to cabinet.
Do you support Sunbury’s bid to withdraw from the City of Hume?
That’s a process we’ve facilitated as a government. We’re now putting in place some of the mechanisms to do that. Our government has facilitated that.
What is the your opinion of the proposed Boral landfill in Ravenhall? Melton City Council has received thousands of objections to the application to date.
I understand a planning application has been lodged with the Melton council as the relevant planning authority.
There is a planning process that needs to
be followed and council will need to consider the merits of the application, in accordance with the relevant local and state planning policies.
Will the state government fund a 24-hour police station in Caroline Springs?
The government will continue to monitor police services in growth communities and will consider any proposals put forward by Victoria Police and the chief commissioner.
