A Year of Action
Wednesday 30 July 08
A Year of Action
30 July 2008
[slide]What do you enjoy most about being Premier of Victoria?[/slide]
The great thing about this job is the opportunity to meet people across the state from all walks of life. I get out and about a lot and in Melbourne and in the regions you meet a huge number of Victorians. You often wish you had more time to spend with people it’s just the nature of the job. I think that is the highlight of the job.
[slide]How have you changed since becoming Premier? [/slide]
I’ve got a great Cabinet, I think the Government’s very fortunate in what I think is the best Cabinet we have seen in this state for a long long time. We all work together very well. So I have learnt in the job as you do in any job, and you know hopefully I’ve gotten better as I’ve gone along.
[slide]What is the most important decision you have made for the future of Victoria? [/slide]
There’s lots of decisions we’ve made as a Government in what I’ve described as the environment but also the economic space, and I intended the UN conference last year on climate change in Bali, I was the only state Premier to do that . I came away from there with a sense that we had to do even more in the climate change area, but do it in a way that helped out environment but also created more jobs for Victorians. There is also the trials we are doing with carbon capture storing and brown coal and reducing the emissions there. They’ve been other initiatives, particularly the hybrid vehicles with Toyota, which good for jobs, good for the economy but also good for improving our environment and addressing climate change. So there have been a lot of things in that space that have been good for the state, good for our liveability, good for our economy and good for our sustainability going forward.
[slide]What action is the Government taking to improve our transport system? [/slide]
We’ve obviously made a lot of decisions in the last year on public transport, I’ve said that’d be a priority I know that the system is congested and I know that it’s packed on many lines and that’s because we are seeing the biggest population boom in our states history, but as you know we have put in something like 200 extra services, there’s the extra rolling stock which we’ve ordered in the first few months when I was Premier, there’s the early bird special before 7am in the morning, the buses from North Melbourne station. All of these things are making improvements but the biggest focus really around the rest of this year will be around Eddington or Eddington plus as I am calling it, because we are looking at other issues and potential improvements to the transport system that weren’t raised directly in his report because his is a report about east-west needs in particular.
So by the end of the year you will have our response to Eddington, Eddington plus, there will be some short term measures, some medium term, so one to five years, and then we’ll also address some of those longer term issues to make sure we’ve got the capacity in place to cater for Melbourne and Victoria’s needs over the next 10, 15 and 20 years. So I know it’s hard at the moment, but we’ve got this year I think 192 million people using the train system, that’s 30 million more than have ever used it in the past, even the big post war migration boom of the 1950’s. So it is a big challenge, we are addressing it and I just ask the public to be patient as some of the initiatives we’ve taken, work there way through the system
[slide]How is the government taking action to support science and technology? [/slide]
I think the first day I was Premier was opening the new Synchrotron, the Australian Synchrotron at Monash University, which of course Victoria had led the way in funding and supporting that. You think about Victoria and you think about Melbourne, people compare us now with the great scientific cities of the world, cities like London and Boston, people speak now of London, Boston and Melbourne and you think of the Synchrotron, you think of the Stem Cell Centre you think of Bio21, you think of what we have done with the Walter and Elisa Hall, and you think most recently of our commitment to the new Life Sciences Super Computer.
You need to give our people with the best minds, the best technology to work with. And like for someone like a Nobel Laureate winner a super computer of that size, they can do in five minutes what ten years ago would have taken them five months to do. I think we have done a huge amount in this space.
[slide]What have been your highlights in Regional Victoria [/slide]
I was really delighted that we got the announcement on the South-West chopper, and I think everyone knows it’s been an issue for a long period of time it’s been over a decade and Governments haven’t been able to find a solution to it. We did that we had to step back think laterally, think outside the square and we’ve provided the extra 24 hour service for Essendon and that means the one in Warrnambool will be completely available for the region. It was a great example of thinking outside the square and I just know how well received that was in the region.
But I think more recently the announcement in Wodonga with the Australian Rail Track Corporation, so the standardisation of the gauge there, $500 million worth of investment and put that with what we are doing with the country freight lines, so all those gold lines identified by Tim Fischer, we’ve got something like $600 million now of investment going into country rail lines, and someone who has always believed in rail and it’s capacity, that was a really positive announcement as well and one that I really enjoyed making.
[slide]What are the economic challenges facing Victoria? [/slide]
The environment is different, it’s a slower world economy our dollar is higher, climate change is very much and issue and we’ve got this huge population boom. And so that’s why our Government has been a decisive Government we’ve made decisions not always popular, but always I think the right decisions in terms of securing the long term future of our state. That’s why I have said too the next decades really got to be a decade of action, because if we are to address all of these issues it is a much more challenging environment. We are going to need to make the right decisions, decisive action to secure the long term prosperity and liveability of the state.
www.premier.vic.gov.au
30 July 2008
[slide]What do you enjoy most about being Premier of Victoria?[/slide]
The great thing about this job is the opportunity to meet people across the state from all walks of life. I get out and about a lot and in Melbourne and in the regions you meet a huge number of Victorians. You often wish you had more time to spend with people it’s just the nature of the job. I think that is the highlight of the job.
[slide]How have you changed since becoming Premier? [/slide]
I’ve got a great Cabinet, I think the Government’s very fortunate in what I think is the best Cabinet we have seen in this state for a long long time. We all work together very well. So I have learnt in the job as you do in any job, and you know hopefully I’ve gotten better as I’ve gone along.
[slide]What is the most important decision you have made for the future of Victoria? [/slide]
There’s lots of decisions we’ve made as a Government in what I’ve described as the environment but also the economic space, and I intended the UN conference last year on climate change in Bali, I was the only state Premier to do that . I came away from there with a sense that we had to do even more in the climate change area, but do it in a way that helped out environment but also created more jobs for Victorians. There is also the trials we are doing with carbon capture storing and brown coal and reducing the emissions there. They’ve been other initiatives, particularly the hybrid vehicles with Toyota, which good for jobs, good for the economy but also good for improving our environment and addressing climate change. So there have been a lot of things in that space that have been good for the state, good for our liveability, good for our economy and good for our sustainability going forward.
[slide]What action is the Government taking to improve our transport system? [/slide]
We’ve obviously made a lot of decisions in the last year on public transport, I’ve said that’d be a priority I know that the system is congested and I know that it’s packed on many lines and that’s because we are seeing the biggest population boom in our states history, but as you know we have put in something like 200 extra services, there’s the extra rolling stock which we’ve ordered in the first few months when I was Premier, there’s the early bird special before 7am in the morning, the buses from North Melbourne station. All of these things are making improvements but the biggest focus really around the rest of this year will be around Eddington or Eddington plus as I am calling it, because we are looking at other issues and potential improvements to the transport system that weren’t raised directly in his report because his is a report about east-west needs in particular.
So by the end of the year you will have our response to Eddington, Eddington plus, there will be some short term measures, some medium term, so one to five years, and then we’ll also address some of those longer term issues to make sure we’ve got the capacity in place to cater for Melbourne and Victoria’s needs over the next 10, 15 and 20 years. So I know it’s hard at the moment, but we’ve got this year I think 192 million people using the train system, that’s 30 million more than have ever used it in the past, even the big post war migration boom of the 1950’s. So it is a big challenge, we are addressing it and I just ask the public to be patient as some of the initiatives we’ve taken, work there way through the system
[slide]How is the government taking action to support science and technology? [/slide]
I think the first day I was Premier was opening the new Synchrotron, the Australian Synchrotron at Monash University, which of course Victoria had led the way in funding and supporting that. You think about Victoria and you think about Melbourne, people compare us now with the great scientific cities of the world, cities like London and Boston, people speak now of London, Boston and Melbourne and you think of the Synchrotron, you think of the Stem Cell Centre you think of Bio21, you think of what we have done with the Walter and Elisa Hall, and you think most recently of our commitment to the new Life Sciences Super Computer.
You need to give our people with the best minds, the best technology to work with. And like for someone like a Nobel Laureate winner a super computer of that size, they can do in five minutes what ten years ago would have taken them five months to do. I think we have done a huge amount in this space.
[slide]What have been your highlights in Regional Victoria [/slide]
I was really delighted that we got the announcement on the South-West chopper, and I think everyone knows it’s been an issue for a long period of time it’s been over a decade and Governments haven’t been able to find a solution to it. We did that we had to step back think laterally, think outside the square and we’ve provided the extra 24 hour service for Essendon and that means the one in Warrnambool will be completely available for the region. It was a great example of thinking outside the square and I just know how well received that was in the region.
But I think more recently the announcement in Wodonga with the Australian Rail Track Corporation, so the standardisation of the gauge there, $500 million worth of investment and put that with what we are doing with the country freight lines, so all those gold lines identified by Tim Fischer, we’ve got something like $600 million now of investment going into country rail lines, and someone who has always believed in rail and it’s capacity, that was a really positive announcement as well and one that I really enjoyed making.
[slide]What are the economic challenges facing Victoria? [/slide]
The environment is different, it’s a slower world economy our dollar is higher, climate change is very much and issue and we’ve got this huge population boom. And so that’s why our Government has been a decisive Government we’ve made decisions not always popular, but always I think the right decisions in terms of securing the long term future of our state. That’s why I have said too the next decades really got to be a decade of action, because if we are to address all of these issues it is a much more challenging environment. We are going to need to make the right decisions, decisive action to secure the long term prosperity and liveability of the state.
www.premier.vic.gov.au
