Labor campaign to get trucks off Melbourne's residential streets labelled "misleading"
May 25, 2011
Melbourne Greens MLC Colleen Hartland has accused the state Labor opposition of running a “misleading” letterbox campaign to remove trucks off residential streets in the city’s west.
The campaign, which is initiated by Footscray MP Marsha Thomson, is asking residents to sign a petition which calls on the Baillieu Government to commit to re-directing trucks away from residential streets.
But Hartland says Labor had more than a decade in power to act but failed to do so.
“The solution to getting trucks off our streets is to move freight onto rail and to implement the Truck Action Plan. Labor has failed to do both of these in their 11 years of government and in reality each year the number of trucks on our streets has increased,” she says.
“Instead, the proportion of freight transported by rail plummeted from 20 percent in 2000 to 12 percent in 2008-09. And the parts of the Truck Action Plan that Labor committed to fund were road widening projects putting more trucks on our roads.
“Any person who walks, rides or drives on our streets can see that Labor failed. This is misleading the community. Not one truck was removed from our streets by Labor,” she says.
Hartland says the freight moving through Melbourne suburbs is set to double within 10 years unless the Truck Action Plan is introduced.
She has criticised the Coalition, which has not committed to the initiative.
“They have no freight logistics plan, no freight on rail target and the Truck Action Plan is under review. This is despite years of criticising Labor’s failures in this area.”