News

Labor continues to fail North East train service

Thursday 6 April 2017

Nationals Member for Ovens Valley Tim McCurdy today hit out at comments made by Labor’s Public Transport Minister that she would not invest in new rolling stock for the North East rail line.

Mr McCurdy said Jacinta Allan’s comments that Labor wouldn’t be providing any new rolling stock until the train line was fixed were simply unacceptable to local train passengers.

“It is a pathetic attitude from the Public Transport Minister that demonstrates yet again she is happy to do absolutely nothing towards the service being improved,” Mr McCurdy said.

“The problems are about much more than works needed to the track.

“New rolling stock would address issues with the travel times and reliability of the service which are the main problems with the journey.

“So many of the cancelled and disrupted services on the line are due to problems with the aged rolling stock including breakdowns, malfunctioning doors, toilets and air conditioning.”

Mr McCurdy said local residents were being let down by the Victorian Labor Government.

“Jacinta Allan and her colleague, Jaclyn Symes the Melbourne-based Member for Northern Victoria, are failing to do anything about this issue,” he said.

“Labor needs to support North East Victoria by providing the funding in the upcoming May budget for new rolling stock on the North East rail line.

“Going by these latest comments by the Public Transport Minister I don’t hold much hope that she has any intention of coming up with the money, but I will wait in hope for her to prove me wrong.”