Report from the Victorian Transport Summit on Friday 5th September, 2008

Kevin Chamberlin, representative for Protectors of Public Lands Victoria at the Transport summit

The speakers at the Summit were:

• Premier of Victoria – John Brumby
• Minister for Public Transport – Lynne Kosky
• Minister for Roads and Ports – Tim Pallas
• Minister for Environment and Climate Change – Gavin Jennings
• Minister for Major Projects – Theo Theophanous
• Minister for Regional and Rural Development – Jacinta Allan
• Minister for Planning – Justin Madden
• Sir Rod Eddington – Chair “East West Link”

Each of the above made a presentation on the transport needs of Victoria from their respective portfolio obligations. The Summit was also attended by groups from the environment/community, union/trucking lobby, consultants with expertise in this area, RACV/road lobby, State Government administration and elected officials from Local Government. The City of Melbourne was not in attendance.

It became very clear following the presentations by the above that transport issues are very high on the Government agenda and the situation is serious. The State Government clearly sees the creation of major projects to overcome these problems as employment/economic stimulators for the state as much as they see them as solutions to the transport problems. It was emphasized that the cost of Channel Deepening and the M3 had played an important part in the economic figures for Victoria. Theo Theophanous referred to “pipelines of work” and “keepings the skills and equipment in Victoria”. John Brumby referred to “pipelines of projects” twice and stated “we will definitely get these”.

There was a “breakout discussion session” where the participants were divided into 5 groups. The themes were-

• Creating a more livable, fairer and sustainable Victoria
• Meeting the challenge of Public Transport and patronage growth
• Meeting the challenge of road congestion and the increasing freight task
• Meeting infrastructure delivery challenges
• Connecting Regional Victoria Continue Reading…