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Ministers at odds over Docklands roads

News Release - 22 April, 2000

At the same time that Transport Minister Peter Bachelor has been claiming that the Government was "forced" to close roads in the Docklands area due to threats of legal action, the Minister for Major Projects has been welcoming moves to divert heavy through traffic away from the Docklands.

The Shadow Minister for Planning (including Major Projects), Robert Clark, said a media statement by the Minister for Major Projects, Mr John Pandazopoulos, directly contradicts the politically motivated attack by Minister Bachelor. The media release states:

The highway [the new Stadium Circuit] has been designed to divert heavy through-traffic away from Harbour Esplanade (formerly Footscray Road) opening the waterfront up to pedestrians. …

The new State Highway will be one of Melbourne's most important roads, carrying traffic to and from the western suburbs and central Melbourne through Docklands and is expected to carry more than 50,000 vehicles a day, including many heavy trucks. …

The completion of this new arterial road is another step in the long-term development of the Melbourne Docklands. (Media Release 19 April 2000)

Mr Clark said that the Stadium Circuit, an initiative of the Kennett Government, had been constructed for the very purpose of providing a route around Docklands to take the place of existing routes.

"The re-routing of traffic around Docklands is vital to allow free and safe movement of pedestrian and local traffic within Docklands and, as Minister Pandazopoulos himself says, to help open up the Docklands waterfront.

"Mr Bachelor's suggestions that, but for the threat of legal actions, the existing routes through the Docklands might remain open, are a serious threat to public and investor confidence in the Government's handling of the Docklands project.

"Docklands has already suffered under the Bracks Government with the failure of the Studio City float and with the indefinite deferment of the Mirvac project.

"Tenders for the Victoria Harbour and Batmans Hill projects, which lie on either side of the existing routes through Docklands, are currently in process.

"Given the importance of this issue to those tenders, and with the public conflict between Ministers, the Government must now put beyond any doubt that the re-routing of Footscray Road traffic is decision which they support on its merits and will not seek to reverse."

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