Geelong’s public transport is failing us

I and many others over many years, have called on the state government and our local member Christine Couzens to address the crisis of the buses in Moorabool Street.

Since then, we have heard the welcome announcement that Labor is going to conduct a ‘review’. However, apart from this announcement, we have seen no action.

In the meantime, the Geelong bus services remain an absolute disaster, with school kids having to squeeze in standing room only, from as far out as Ocean Grove, and some of the school communities have been told there is no longer capacity for their children on the buses. We still have no school buses from Fyansford or other newer developed areas.

Last year, we had a fatality when a school bus had an accident. That event was just tragic, but can you imagine how much worse that event would have been if it had been the Ocean Grove bus, packed with standing, squeezed-in kids?

Our region cannot afford lengthy ‘comprehensive reviews’ from a Department of Transport that has a long history of doing bugger all. The situation is critical and requires an immediate response.

The Geelong rail connection for working parents is also a joke. Each time the temperature reaches 30C or higher, we have delays, overcrowded trains and problems.

Last week, it was standing room only at Southern Cross Station on the Geelong line for the 5pm service. Working people, after a long day, are expected to stand for an hour as the ‘regional’ train stops at metro stations, like Wyndham Vale, Tarneit, Deer Park and Sunshine.

The electrified metro services should service these suburbs but instead are clogging the regional network. It was June 2015 that the last ‘comprehensive review’ by the same Department of Transport decided to divert our regional trains through western Melbourne. They sold it to us as an upgrade, yet it added 15 minutes to the journey and clogged our daily commute with metro passengers overcrowding the train.

The Geelong CBD and the public transport problem are inherently linked. The Geelong CBD cannot be rejuvenated until it has a reliable transport network.

Market Square remains a massive hurdle, with two youth stabbing incidents last week. Vacancies attract problems, and they will continue to occur while this building remains in the hands of a non-responsive owner and incompetent management.

I can reveal that over the summer break a group of concerned Geelong business people wrote to the owners of Market Square, the Davinsky Group, and pleaded for them to sell the building on commercial terms. These concerned local community businesses are willing to put their hands in their own pockets and form a syndicate to buy back this crucial asset for Geelong and help save our CBD. The approach was dismissed by the owners and their Australian representatives.

The only path forward is compulsory acquisition, as our mayor again confirmed in a recent interview on ‘PROPped by the Bar’. Due to the nature of this type of compulsory acquisition, the issue now sits with the state government. Which party will come forward before November’s election with a promise to address our issues?

With revelations of corruption and the loss of $15b from the “big build” in Melbourne, can you imagine how much could have been done for Geelong with only a fraction of that lost money?

We could have acquired Market Square and developed it 50 times! We could have built a fast train (estimated at $2b) between Geelong and Melbourne 7.5 times. The total budget for public bus services across Victoria in 2025 was $1.23b, supporting over 400 bus routes. How many bus services in regional Victoria could this money have fixed?

It seems to have escaped everyone’s notice that the International Monetary Fund last week issued an unprecedented warning about Victoria’s debt, stating that it would require an Australian federal government guarantee.

Therefore, Victoria’s debt is now going to impact every taxpayer in the country. This debt is hard to swallow on the back of growing evidence of systemic corruption enabled by state government construction projects.

Like most regional Victorians I am feeling deflated. I work hard and pay my taxes and am just so angry over the money being wasted.

Geelong needs answers. Now! From our local member! What is her position on the corruption allegations? Why isn’t she demanding answers on our behalf? It’s time our local representatives started asking the big questions.

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