Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) -- In rising to support Mr Koch's motion this afternoon I am reminded of what Mr Elasmar said in his contribution to this debate. His exact words were, 'It is easy to criticise the Brumby government on the transport issue'. He is dead right! He is spot on the money.

It is very easy to criticise the Brumby government on what it has done to the transport system in this state. It has turned the transport system in this state into a blithering mess. If the transport system in this state were a human being, it would be locked away for its own protection. This is a disaster on wheels -- sometimes it is on wheels, sometimes it is not!

I have to say that when I listened to members of the government speaking against this motion today there did not appear to be a great deal of enthusiasm. There was not a lot of fire in the belly. That might have something to do with the fact that there is an admission and acceptance by members of the government that they have really stuffed up the transport system. Over 10 years they have made the transport system in this state a total mess.

I cannot quite remember who it was, but a little bit earlier I heard a government member alluding to what he saw as a fact, that it is all Jeff Kennett's fault. If I hear that once more, I think I am going to throw something. Jeff Kennett has not been Premier of this state for nigh on 11 years. This government cannot keep blaming Jeff Kennett for everything that goes wrong. Labor has held the great office of government of this state for nearly 11 years. It has got to start taking responsibility.

Mr Lenders -- Who blamed him?

Mr FINN -- Mr Lenders, the government must start taking responsibility for its actions over a decade; it has been there longer than the Kennett government was there. It has been there longer than the Cain and Kirner governments were there. This is one of the longest serving governments we have seen in recent times.

It is necessary in my view that the government take responsibility for its own actions. To blame Jeff Kennett or somebody else for what is going on is wearing little bit thin.

Members of the government should go out and have a chat to the people in the street, their constituents. Maybe some of them do from time to time, I do not know; I certainly do. The feedback I get is that the people of Victoria are getting very sick of this government blaming Jeff Kennett for everything. There is no way Jeff Kennett or anybody else can be blamed for what the Labor government has done to transport in this state.

Let us go back to 1999 when the Labor government fell into office. I remember well that as part of Labor's policy it had an airport rail link. We all remember there was going to be a rail link between the airport and the city.

I tell you what: we in the western suburbs, particularly in the north-west, can lay claim to being victims of the first broken promise of the new government, because within I think one month of this government's coming into power, the airport link was off the agenda. It was gone. That was the very first broken promise of the new Labor government, and the first of many, I might say. But we claim the title of victims of the first broken promise of the then Bracks government.

Instead of having an airport link as they do in Sydney and Brisbane quite successfully -- I have used them on a number of occasions and they work very well -- we have something else. I do not wish to have a swipe at Skybus, because I think it does a relatively good job, but it certainly is not the rail link we were promised as

part of the platform that brought the Labor Party to government in 1999.

Then we have the 'farce' rail. We all remember that because like myki it went on forever. Labor costed that at $80 million. At the end of the day it came in at over $1 billion. Right from day one Labor had its figures totally wrong. As we see on a daily basis, nothing has changed. We had the farce rail blow-out before our very eyes, and in some places, like Bendigo, for example, trains come into their stations up to 30 seconds earlier than before. We are spending over $1 billion to get trains travelling faster and arriving 30 seconds earlier than before. That is quite ludicrous.

Then of course we have what I described this morning as the great gamble -- myki. I went into a little bit of detail this morning.

It seems this is the latest gambling game in Victoria, because you put money on the card and sometimes, as was discovered last weekend, you hit the jackpot and might get $1600 and $1700 put on the card for you. On the other hand you might lose the lot, as happened to one of my constituents just this morning.

Can I suggest to the house and the government that as part of the promotion -- and let us face it, this government is all about promotion -- and marketing ploy for this new ticketing scheme, the government embrace the gambling aspect of this and call it 'mykino'. That would appeal to a good number of people in this state and might get us somewhere.

It might actually get some money back, because we have already as a state lost over $1.3 billion down the drain on this scheme with the promise of more to come. We do not know, we have no idea, how much more this government is going to lose. Will it be $2 billion? Will it be $3 billion?

If we have gone through nine years and we have got to $1.3 billion, perhaps we might see an acceleration and more losses as we speed through this wonderful new ticketing process.

What a disaster it is. It would be a joke if it were not the hardworking taxpayers of Victoria who are being slugged for this monstrosity of a so-called ticketing system that at this point will not get us down Bourke Street. If I had a myki ticket in my pocket and I got on the tram out the front of Parliament House, it would not get me down Bourke Street. After our spending $1.3 billion the ticketing system will not get us down a major street in the city of Melbourne.

It raises the question of what we could get for $1.3 billion if this government knew what it was doing.

If this government were responsible enough to care about the taxpayers money in this state, what could we get for the $1.3 billion that has been blown on the ticketing system that cannot get us down Bourke Street? How about a decent train system? How about putting in the infrastructure that is necessary for trains to run on time? How about fixing up the North Melbourne railway station so the trains from north of Melbourne and west of Melbourne and the rest of Victoria, I should say, could actually get through what is now an enormous bottleneck? How about that money going towards solving the problem of the North Melbourne railway station? That might be good.

How about putting some infrastructure in place to ensure that whenever the temperature reaches more than 35 degrees the system does not start falling to pieces? I might be a lot older than I used to be, but it seems to me that when I was a lad it was very hot as well and the train system did not grind to a halt every time it reached 35 or 36 degrees.

These days that seems to be par for the course, so how about the government put money it may have left after the myki disaster into infrastructure to stop that from happening?

If we had not blown the $1.3 billion, perhaps we could have put some money into the Laverton railway level crossing. I was told by a constituent that last week the gates were closed for 18 minutes. My constituent sat at the level crossing at Laverton for 18 minutes waiting for trains to pass before he could go on. At Hoppers Crossing, a little bit further out, there is exactly the same problem. On a number of occasions I have seen near misses as a result of conditions at this level crossing, and I have also seen the real thing -- that is, car coming into contact with car -- as a result of conditions at this particular level crossing. If the government had not blown $1.3 billion on its non-existent ticketing system, we could have got some value for money -- a concept not known to the Labor Party in this state. We could have got some value for money.

There is much I could speak about on this subject because it is a huge one. It is a subject that goes to the very core of the credibility of this government. The people of Victoria are looking at what has happened with myki and they are saying, 'If that is the best the Brumby government can do, it is about time government members got on their bikes and went out'. They want the Brumby government right out of town. On Saturday week the people of Altona will get their opportunity to tell the Brumby government what they think of it, and in November this year we will all have the opportunity to return this state to responsible, good, hardworking government -- something we have not

had for a little over 10 years now, and it is about time we went back to it.

As I have said, I strongly support Mr Koch's motion. I hope that as a result of this motion we see some improvement in the Brumby government's performance on transport, but I will not be holding my breath.