To all supporters, over the last month the South & West Gippsland Transport Group committee have been discussing the prospect of initiating a second petition due to the successes of the first petition, which has now being passed onto Public Transport Victoria. There is a couple reasons that have prompted us to take this approach and the article published as far back as The Great Southern Star's December 15, 2015 edition on page 49 is when it was first considered. Firstly, although we could still use the first petition as evidence for community and public support, we are aiming to achieve more signatures and greater awareness of our campaign this time in a much shorter time frame. The second petition will be specifically directed for the Victorian Parliament as we used the previous one to attain municipal and local government support. This time we are setting an ambitious goal to double the signatures. 5,000 is our target set in mind at this stage and since our campaign is a lot more established and now delivered through social media more effectively this is definitely achievable. Second factor, a couple of articles featuring certain political figures talking about our first petition since it was closed on the 14th of December and stance on the return of the rail to South Gippsland, Leongatha have prompted us to make this decision. It will be online again and it will be legitimate just like the last one was, which had 2,420 supporters and 60% of the signatures coming from South Gippsland alone. However, the state of play has certainly changed since the closure of the first petition as South Gippsland Shire Council supported the current petition's motions on February 24 and the South Gippsland Tourist Railway folded on January 16. In summary, we are aiming to acquire even more evidence to emphatically demonstrate that the local community, industry groups and local governments are supporting our campaign and the time for action is now. We expect the petition to be launched around late April or early May as a couple of committee members have upcoming commitments that will delay this process. Message sent on behalf of South & West Gippsland Transport Group Media Manager Chris Cantlon “The South & West Gippsland Transport Group aims to improve public transport. It is advocating the return of rail services to Leongatha, to establish a rail loop between Cranbourne and Pakenham and to improve bus services between towns and Melbourne”.