Rail loop ‘bells and whistles’ axed but critics remain
Callum Godde |
Axing “bells and whistles” on a mega rail project in a bid to save $2 billion has not quietened some critics.
Victorian Premier Ben Carroll has taken a scalpel to Suburban Rail Loop East, a long-time Labor state government pet project, ahead of the November election.
The Suburban Rail Loop is a planned 90km orbital line stretching from Cheltenham in Melbourne’s southeast to Werribee in the outerwest via the airport at Tullamarine.
The 26km eastern section from Cheltenham to Box Hill was slated to cost between $30 billion and $34.5 billion, with a target delivery of 2035.
But Mr Carroll has vowed to find $2 billion in savings, including an immediate $1 billion by cutting the project’s scope.
Under the changes, underground station interchanges at Box Hill and Glen Waverley will no longer be built with a plan to instead provide surface transfers.
Other moves include finding alternative ways to deliver sufficient parking in Glen Waverley, scrapping a second station entrance at Clayton and axing complex pedestrian bridges in Burwood and Cheltenham.
A community projects fund will be wound up, some future precinct works scaled back and the Suburban Rail Loop Authority folded into the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority.
The commonsense changes remove “bells and whistles” on the project, Mr Carroll said.
“Overpasses, walkways, car parks, community grants are nice to haves but they are not needed to build the orbital railway line,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
The changes will not slow current works, with tunnel boring machines to enter the ground on schedule.
Mr Carroll, who replaced Jacinta Allan as premier in mid-August, has also vowed to establish an independent technical review to target another $1 billion in savings.
A panel of tunnelling and engineering experts will oversee the review and report back in three to six months.
No more contracts will be signed until the review is complete.
After the review, the revised estimated spend for SRL East could fall to $32.3 billion.
With the Victorian budget edging towards $200 billion in net debt by 2030, former Labor senator Stephen Conroy urged Mr Carroll to cut further.
“This is a dog of a project that the previous leadership committed Labor to,” Mr Conroy told News24 TV.
“It’s totally sabotaged the budget going forward and I would hope they’re able to do a lot more than just $2 billion in savings.”
Mr Carroll conceded work was underway to find savings before he became premier but denied that included calling time on the body overseeing the loop.
More than 500 staff work within the dedicated authority, with the premier refusing to put a number on expected redundancies once the merger is complete by mid-2026.
The Victorian coalition has vowed to “pause and review” SRL East if it wins the upcoming election.
Mr Carroll argued doing so would cost taxpayers millions of dollars a day and labelled the opposition’s plan “economic vandalism”.
“For the party that’s meant to be the party of financial responsibility, they do not know what they’re doing or talking about,” he said.
As of the May state budget, $13 billion of construction contracts had been awarded for the project, including $5.3 billion for tunnelling.
Opposition public transport spokesman Matthew Guy cast doubt over the veracity of the government’s revised costing and said Victorians deserved to clap eyes on all related contracts before the election.
“You ask me how long is it (the review) going to take? My answer to you is show me the contracts, I’ll give you an answer straight away,” he said.
AAP