Community facilities Roads Speeches | February 06, 2020

Rail Freight Services

Victorian Parliament - 6 February, 2020 - 

Ms KEALY: The future of the rail freight services in western Victoria are in limbo following Labor’s 20 per cent cut to the mode shift incentive scheme and the failure by Labor to maintain our freight and rail lines. Despite the minister’s statements otherwise, when Labor came to government the MSIS’s budget was $5 million a year. It is now just $4 million, with no funding allocated from 1 July 2020. Further repairs to the Dimboola–Rainbow freight line have been abandoned by Labor, and the line is now closed. With a bumper harvest of around 200 000 tonnes coming from this area, the rail line closure means an additional 6000 B-double movements on our already crumbling, narrow roads around Rainbow and Jeparit. I call on the minister to prioritise full rail freight and immediately fix our freight lines, fix our roads and reverse her decision to scrap the mode shift incentive scheme.

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