Labor early this month pledged to cap the cost of a daily ticket on the V/Line network at $9.20 if voted back in at Saturday’s election.
Sounds great, but is Mildura actually part of that plan?
The party at first heavily linked the announcement to trains, something Mildura doesn’t have, and said it would operate through the Myki ticketing system, another thing Mildura doesn’t have.
Public Transport Minister Ben Carroll confirmed Myki would be rolled out to “the entire state”, but it was unclear whether that was a reference only to the places with train services.
Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan said in one interview coach journeys would be included in the cap, but again the Myki question remained unanswered.
A press release talked up the benefits to Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat and Shepparton.
Labor ran social media ads promoting the promise to Maryborough and Ararat passengers.
So Sunraysia Daily asked the government: did this policy include trips from Mildura to Melbourne?
A spokesperson had an “understanding” the fare cap would cover an entire journey but – get this – such details would be confirmed if Labor was re-elected.
The spokesperson was to get back to us with any further details should they arrive, but it appeared none had.
In Saturday’s paper, Labor’s Mildura candidate Stella Zigouras is spruiking the $9.20 fare cap.
But, pressed on whether she had received confirmation Mildura would be involved, she had no response as of Friday.
The prospect of a government tackling the issue of Mildura’s isolation by offering trips to the city for under $10 seems like an incredible win for this region.
A one-way full-fare trip to the big smoke would be slashed from the current $56.80, a whopping 83 per cent discount.
For most motorists, the discount on driving and paying for fuel would be even steeper.
Mildura travellers would also be better off than under the Coalition’s policy of halving V/Line fares uniformly across the state, which would make a one-way trip from Mildura more than three times $9.20.
Arguably, it’s that rare policy that gets better the further away from Melbourne you are.
But election day is here and we still can’t report with 100 per cent confidence that Mildura is even included. Bizarre.
This is a Nat attack
THE Nationals have spent more money on social media ads attacking Ali Cupper than the Cupper campaign’s entire spend on the same platforms.
Information on spending by political entities is published by the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
It showed at least $3600 – and counting, as of yesterday – had been spent by The Nationals on ads, viewed at least 170,000 times, seeking to link the independent MP with Labor Premier Daniel Andrews.
At least $200 was spent promoting the since-walked-back claim that Ms Cupper voted with Labor “over two-thirds of the time”. The claim was seen at least 35,000 times.
Last week, this column revealed The Nationals had pivoted to the figure being less than 60 per cent.
Ms Cupper, in the 90 days up to Friday, had herself spent $2041 on Facebook and Instagram ads.
Some of the ads did contrast Ms Cupper’s record to that of the previous Nationals MP, so some may construe those as being in the “attack” category.
But crucially, Ms Cupper remained the face of each of the ads – Nationals candidate Jade Benham was nowhere to be seen in the Cupper-Andrews ads.
In addition to that spend, which ran on the statewide Nationals page, a further $9295 was spent on ads promoted by Ms Benham’s campaign page.
The page of Liberal candidate Paul Matheson had spent $1546.
Statewide, Labor had spent $446,790 but, in a further sign of their lacklustre campaigning up here, only 1.7 per cent of that was on ads that included the Mildura postcode among its target audience.
The Liberals were up to $161,268 for the campaign, with 34.5 per cent of party ads at least partially aimed at Mildura voters.
Different wheels, same problem
INDEPENDENT candidate Glenn Milne raised some eyebrows at last week’s Sunraysia Daily election forum when he warned bringing back the train might mean passengers are subjected to drunken behaviour and other undesirable types.
It didn’t take long for evidence to emerge that, unfortunately, even in the absence of a train, it’s already a reality on the current bus service.
Within days of the forum, this paper reported a Mildura man was convicted in Mildura Magistrates’ Court over an incident that occurred after he was kicked off the V/Line bus in Donald for smoking and drinking alcohol.
Guess who?
WHICH political aspirant wasn’t doing so well after being bitten by a dog when eagerly approaching a pet-owning voter outside the Mildura early voting venue?
