Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) -- One has to say that when we consider the state of transport in Victoria in the year 2010, we yearn for the good old days when Alan Brown was the Minister for Public Transport because he was somebody who actually knew his portfolio. He was somebody who cared about his portfolio, knew about transport and knew what the people of Victoria needed in the area of public transport, or indeed private transport.

The same cannot be said under any circumstances about the present government. When we talk about public transport in this state I cannot help but think of the monumental mess-up that was created at Craigieburn. There might not be too many members of the house who are aware of what happened at Craigieburn, so I think it is important that I inform the house of occurrences there. Prior to the 1999 election -- in fact prior to the 1996 election, I think -- there was a Labor Party promise to electrify the Broadmeadows line all the way to Craigieburn.

The Labor Party regurgitated that promise in 1999, 2002 and 2006, and it got good value for money. It can get value for money because it recycles its promises quite a bit. It is the only way in which you can get value for money from this particular government.

The government finally got around to electrifying the railway line to Craigieburn at a cost of many millions of dollars -- all taxpayers money of course. But when it finished the project it realised it had not quite got it right, so it had to start again. It dug up around the railway station and put all sorts of new equipment and new gadgetry in and around there at a cost of many millions of dollars -- taxpayers dollars of course. As far as this government is concerned that does not matter. But then the government realised it had stuffed it up again, and so in it went again with the taxpayers dollars.

Here we had a situation where something as simple as the electrification of a rail line and the redevelopment of a railway station was blown out of the budgetary park by a government that just cannot seem to get anything right. I cannot understand why. Some things are so simple, so straightforward, but the government still stuffs it up. This government has turned it into an art form.

I use the Craigieburn railway station and the electrification of the line as an example of what this government is capable of doing. Of course we could go into details about many other things. We should talk about myki; we could talk about the $1.35 billion -- --

Mrs Peulich -- Down the gurgler.

Mr FINN -- It is $1.35 billion, and counting, down the gurgler, as Mrs Peulich says.

Mrs Peulich -- Not quite as bad as the pink batts.

Mr FINN -- Not quite as bad as the pink batts, but let us not get into that, please. It is $1.35 billion, thank you very much, down the drain, and counting. I have to ask at this point: when is the government actually going to come to the point and say, 'Righto, let's cut our losses'. Is it going to push ahead with this fanciful new myki ticketing system?

Mrs Peulich -- Inner metro only.

Mr FINN -- Inner metro only, you have heard?

Mrs Peulich -- Apparently.

Mr FINN -- Apparently. Fair enough. Members heard it here first!

When is the government actually going to cut its losses; or are we going to go past the $2 billion mark, or the $3 billion mark? Are people's egos going to be bigger than the budgetary blow-out, if that is at all possible? It is extraordinary that any government can claim to have any sense of responsibility and carry on in the way that it does. Just using the myki money, the money that has been lost to this point, the $1.35 billion -- --

Mrs Peulich -- What could it have paid for?

Mr FINN -- A very good question, Mrs Peulich, and one that I was just going to pose myself.

Mrs Peulich -- I thought so.

Mr FINN -- Yes, you did; you are a mind reader.

You should have a towel on your head and a crystal ball, because I was going to ask what that money could be used for. It could be used for a hell of a lot out in my electorate in the western suburbs. There are huge portions of the western suburbs which have extremely poor, even appalling public transport. We have huge sections of the western suburbs where from about midday on a Saturday until about 6 o'clock on a Monday morning there is no public transport at all. We have housing estates in many parts of the western suburbs that are like prisons. Come lunchtime on Saturday the gates are shut and they are opened again at about 6 o'clock on Monday morning when people can once again travel to and from their homes. Of course the social problems that that is creating are quite extraordinary, because there are a lot of young people and a lot of kids on these estates. They want to go out. They want to go to the movies, they want to go to the

footy and they want to go to local festivals or whatever may be on. But because of the appalling public transport and the alleged services in these estates, they just cannot get there and they have to find ways of amusing themselves. This is not necessarily what we hope these young people would do. That creates a crime problem, street gangs and so forth, and on it goes.

We have a problem which needs to be addressed but is not in any way, shape or form being addressed by this government. Places like Point Cook, Truganina and Caroline Springs are in desperate need of better public transport, but you would never, ever see this government providing it. All you get from the government in a place like Caroline Springs, for example, is abuse from Minister Madden. That is all he has done.

Mrs Peulich -- The Minister for the Respect Agenda.

Mr FINN -- The Minister for the Respect Agenda indeed! What a joke, making him Minister for the Respect Agenda. That is like making me minister for soccer. It is absolutely ludicrous.

Of course it is frustrating to hear and to see members of this government talk about their love of the western suburbs when we know that the only word that is used in reference to the western suburbs as far as they are concerned is neglect. That is the big word: neglect. They are very happy to build new subdivisions. They are very happy to put suburbs in place. You just have to look at the Altona electorate which voted during the by-election a couple of weeks ago. Half the people who voted at the recent by-election ago were not even there when the 2006 election was on. They did not live there. Places like Point Cook were not there. Shopping centres and schools were just not there two years ago.

I have to say that the public transport is not there either to a very large degree, yet the government will take the stamp duty attached to land sales. The Treasurer is sitting on the other side of the chamber. He will rub his hands together with glee. He will very cheerfully grab the homeowners and hold them up by their feet and shake them until every coin drops from their pockets. He will take their money and he will put it away and keep it. But do you reckon he will spend it on the people he has taken it from? Not on your nelly. That is not going to happen. You will not find any minister from this government doing that sort of thing. That is just not on as far as they are concerned.

I could talk about the Laverton railway station. Earlier today we heard the Minister for Public Transport talking about the new development at the Laverton station, but the government even stuffed that up.

The Laverton station used to have the most magnificent ramp where people who were running late for a train could belt down there at a great rate of knots and, 9 times out of 10 -- and I have witnessed this myself -- they could almost leap onto the train as the doors were flung open.

This ramp has been replaced; it is no more.

Mr Koch interjected.

Mr FINN -- Steps -- that is exactly right, Mr Koch. Apart from the effect it has on people with disabilities, watching people run for the train now has an added element of danger, to say the least. Watching people run for the train is almost a blood sport at Laverton, because they can no longer get their speed up as they are heading down the ramp for the train. The ramp is not there any more so people have to negotiate the stairs, which are very steep.

I have seen a number of people fall there as they try to do what they have always done, but that is something the government will have to negotiate. I am relatively confident that in times to come there will probably be legal suits brought against the government on behalf of those injured on the stairs at Laverton station. I suggest to the government that it might like to do a Craigieburn -- to go in there with taxpayers money and fix that problem before the lawyers get their greedy mitts on it.

Public transport is obviously a major issue in the western suburbs, but it is not just public transport that is an issue. As I have pointed out in this house time and again, traffic congestion is a major issue not just on major roads but on a lot of roads in and around the western suburbs. The closer you get to the city, the worse the congestion is, but it has to be said that around Hoppers Crossing, for example, the congestion at peak hour is horrific -- and that is way out of town.

Of course the biggest problem we have in the western suburbs is a thing called the West Gate Freeway. What we need in the western suburbs is -- --

Mrs Peulich -- Fairy lights.

Mr FINN -- We do not need fairy lights. Mr Pallas, the Minister for Roads and Ports, has given us fairy lights and a couple of flags, and I presume pretty soon he is going to go down the rows of cars -- --

An honourable member -- Icy poles.

Mr FINN -- No, he will go to the rows and rows of cars queued up in peak hour every morning with

popcorn -- perhaps it will be caramel popcorn -- just to keep people happy.

What the western suburbs need more than anything else regarding transport is a second Yarra crossing. At the moment reinforcement work is being carried out on the West Gate Bridge. I am informed, and I believe reliably so, that the building of a second Yarra crossing would in fact be cheaper than the reinforcement work that is currently being carried out on the West Gate Bridge. Where is the sense in that? If you could get a second Yarra crossing for less than the reinforcement work on the bridge, why would you not do that? I cannot understand or explain it; I can only put it down to the mystery that is the Minister for Roads and Ports in this state. He had a pretty good start, but he is slipping in a fairly big way.

We have a major problem with the West Gate Freeway and the West Gate Bridge.

Anyone who is a regular user of the West Gate would know that it is frequently blocked, as I said in this house earlier today, and traffic is frequently banked back well towards Geelong. This is not just an issue for the western suburbs of Melbourne but for Geelong, for people in western Victoria and particularly for Ballarat, because a lot of people from Ballarat travel to Melbourne via the Deer Park bypass -- thanks to the great legacy the Howard federal government left the people of the western suburbs -- and onto the West Gate and become stuck there.

It is a major problem for the great majority of the west of Victoria, not just the western suburbs. However, as always, the government just does not seem to care. It does not want to do anything about it; it does not want to know anything about it. The Brumby government just does not care. It could not care less.

I turn to the Tullamarine interchange.

A couple of years ago it was heralded as the greatest thing Melbourne has seen since the last Richmond Football Club premiership. It was a marvellous thing that would solve all the problems of people travelling into the city from the north-west. I travel from the north-west pretty much on a daily basis, and I can say it has not worked. There is still congestion, and it is pretty bad. It is appalling at times. It is almost as if that interchange work -- and it cost a lot of money -- did not happen at all. You have to wonder what the government's plan is with regard to transport.

Mrs Peulich interjected.

Mr FINN -- I am sure there will be a lot more, Mrs Peulich, before the government is finished. You have to wonder what its priorities are and what its logic is. There does not seem to be a great deal at all.

The problem is that when it comes to transport, as I said earlier, the name of the game for the Brumby Labor government is 'neglect'. It is a big word that looms over the western suburbs of Melbourne like a beacon -- neglect. Labor just does not want to know what is going on in the western suburbs. It is neglectful of these suburbs in the extreme. I know that when the people of the western suburbs go to vote on 27 November, just as they did two weeks ago in Altona, they will remember that when it comes to the western suburbs Labor just does not care.