Latest news with #SRLEast
Sky News AU
08-07-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
‘At what cost?': Victorian opposition dismisses poll showing support for Suburban Rail Loop warning the project is a ‘debt bomb'
The Victorian opposition has dismissed polling showing a majority of Victorians support a major Allan government infrastructure project, describing it as a 'debt bomb'. Newspoll results released on Tuesday show a massive 78 per cent of Victorians are fairly worried or very worried about the state's skyrocketing debt levels – which are set to hit $194 billion by 2028-29. However the poll also found 59 per cent of Victorians backed the controversial multi-stage Suburban Rail Loop project, the first stage of which is set to cost more than $34 billion. Opposition Leader Brad Battin dismissed the findings on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters the question lacked key context. 'It depends on what question you ask. If I said to people, would you like to see a rail loop that goes all the way around Melbourne, they'd say yes. But if I said to you, it's at the cost of the next generations ever getting infrastructure, they'd say no,' Mr Battin said. The comment was echoed by shadow major projects minister Evan Mulholland, who said everyone liked a train, "but they don't like a debt bomb". "A debt bomb is what the Suburban Rail Loop is,' Mr Mulholland added. 'It's Victorians, particularly in the eastern suburbs, but everywhere that will be paying for the suburban rail loop for generations.' Mr Mulholland said the Victorian Liberals and Nationals wanted more new rail, but priority should be given to electrifying rail in outer suburban growth areas. 'It's people in the growth areas, places like Donnybrook and Wallen in my electorate, and Wyndham Vale and Melton that desperately need electrified rail,' he said. 'And we know the government sitting on a secret report which shows that these communities, within five years, are going to be facing crushed conditions where V-Line trains are going to have to skip stations because the government hasn't planned the infrastructure where it is urgent. 'We want electrified rail where it's needed for all Victorians, because you've got people living in third-world conditions in our growth areas. Our fellow Victorians that are suffering, that do not have public transport access where it's needed.' Mr Battin said that in just four years Victoria would be spending $1.2 million every hour in interest on the debt. 'That's more than $10 billion each and every year,' he said. 'That's nearly twice what we spend on Victoria Police during a crime crisis. It's just under what we spend in health during a health crisis. It's more than we spend on education here in Victoria. How can the government justify putting so much money into one project?' The Allan government is yet to outline how it will fund the SRL East - the first of three stages on the project, which will see trains run between Cheltenham and Box Hill. The Victorian government has committed just $11.8 billion towards the project with the Albanese government committing just $2.2 billion, leaving an almost $20 billion black hole – with the Allan government claiming a third of the funding will come from value capture. The multi-stage orbital train line was estimated to cost $50 billion when it was proposed by then-Premier Daniel Andrews ahead of the 2018 state election. However costs have since doubled, with a 2024 report by the Parliamentary Budget Office estimating it will cost $96.4 billion to build the SRL East and SRL North sections of the project. SRL East, which is already being constructed, will see trains running from Cheltenham to Box Hill, with stops in Clayton, Monash, Glen Waverley and Burwood – thereby connecting the Frankston, Pakenham/Cranbourne, Glen Waverley and Lilydale/Belgrade train lines. SRL North will then see this extended from Box Hill to Melbourne Airport, with stops in Doncaster, Heidelberg, Bundoora, Reservoir, Fawkner, and Broadmeadows – connecting the Lilydale/Belgrade line with the Hurstbridge, Mernda, Upfield and Craigieburn lines. The line will then connect to the long-awaited Melbourne airport rail link, which will run from Sunshine to the Airport via Keilor East, with a final SRL West section connecting Werribee to Sunshine.
ABC News
03-07-2025
- Business
- ABC News
Victoria's Suburban Rail Loop Minister digs in on state's $34 billion funding plan for six new train stations
The minister for Victoria's Suburban Rail Loop is adamant it will be delivered within its $34 billion budget, but has refused to discuss back-up plans or exit strategies should Canberra reject a $9 billion funding request. In an interview with Stateline, Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop Harriet Shing said work was continuing daily with the Commonwealth for stage one of the rail loop known as SRL East — six train stations between Cheltenham and Box Hill. The Victorian government is contributing a third of funding of stage 1 directly, while planning to raise another third from value capture — a levy on local development around each station — and is relying on the remainder to come from the Commonwealth. The Albanese government has already provided $2.2 billion for early works as part of a 2022 election commitment. Earlier this year, advisory body Infrastructure Australia said it had low confidence in the state's ability to build SRL East within the $30-$34.5 billion budget and requested Victoria provide more detailed analysis of its plans, including an updated cost estimate and exit strategies from the project. It said without assessing these updated results the Commonwealth should not consider paying the remaining $9 billion the Victorian government is asking for. "We're continuing to deliver the information that the federal infrastructure department needs and to engage with Commonwealth ministers and of course the prime minister," Ms Shing said. She said Infrastructure Australia recommended paying $2.2 billion for the SRL East project but then counselled the Commonwealth to ask for further detail, which Victorian departments were providing. "This is a conversation for a project of enormous size and scale and complexity and of course the federal government is doing its due diligence — as it should," Ms Shing said. She dismissed the need for an updated cost estimate for SRL East, saying construction was already underway according to costings made in 2021. "The contracts that we've entered into at the moment are on track. They are within those ranges," Ms Shing said. The SRL minister remained adamant in response to repeated questions about whether the Victorian government had a back-up funding plan if the Commonwealth decided not to stump up more cash. She emphasised the principle behind the project, saying that failing to build infrastructure for future generations would exacerbate existing problems. "It's irresponsible to describe the problems of a city that is growing at this rate — we'll be the size of London by the 2050s — and not to have any long-term plan to address those challenges of congestion and unfettered growth around the outside suburbs," she said. Ms Shing would not be drawn on exit strategies for the project if funding methods — via the Commonwealth or value capture — fail. "The only people who are talking about cancelling this project are the state opposition," she said. Ms Shing said she was confident the government would be able to raise $11.8 billion it needs via value capture (approximately one third of the cost) to fund SRL East. She said the funding method had been used in other parts of Australia to finance large scale projects such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Ms Shing explained value capture would involve the government extracting a portion of the profits that come from housing developments built in a 600 metre radius around each of the six new train stations. "So across the SRL precincts ... there will be 70,000 new homes delivered and we will see an enormous investment in employment precincts and jobs." How the government would extract wealth out of developments around the new SRL train stations, without creating a disincentive for developers is yet to be detailed. "Planning reform is another really important part of this work." Ms Shing said details on value capture plans would be revealed in coming months. Ms Shing said the SRL project was not just about rail but a broader vision to build for Melbourne's growing population. Doing nothing would push growth further into the city's north and west, she said. "These are areas that know only too well what a lack of access to infrastructure means for them and for their quality of life and opportunity," Ms Shing said. The minister declined, or was unable, to say how many people would use the SRL East train route when it opens in 2035, though she did say 460,000 people would use the SRL line once fully completed, which is decades away. She said the number of SRL East train users would be "as many as the timetable will allow". "The objective is to get to 'turn up and go' services, which then means across those twin tunnels we'll be able to have people accessing that to the greatest density possible using signalling that allows us to have high capacity trains — so, for more passengers — across a timetable that meets that demand," Ms Shing said. "When that timetable is developed we'll be able to see how many people will be using it."
Sydney Morning Herald
25-06-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Allan has time to abandon Melbourne's gargantuan folly. But it's about to run out
The way the SRL East contracts are structured, construction and engineering companies working on the project bill the state on a monthly basis. Under this pay-as-you-dig arrangement, consortia are paid profits only on costs they have incurred and work they have done. This means that if the government quit the SRL now, it could break the main works contracts it has already signed for a fraction of their nominal, $5.3 billion value. There are no hidden nasties like there were in the East West Link contract the former Coalition government booby-trapped for Labor on the eve of the 2014 state election. Once the tunnel boring machine is loaded onto freight transport in Guangzhou, the costs incurred by the main works consortia – this first to get its hands dirty is the Suburban Connect consortia comprising of Acciona, CPB Contractors and Ghella – will escalate quickly. By Christmas, the Victorian government will be standing deep in a hole at Clarinda with a choice only to keep digging. This calculus should be front-of-mind for anyone reading revelations by my colleagues Patrick Hatch and Kieran Rooney about the North West Strategic Assessment, a wafty title given to a secret government document detailing urgent rail projects needed in parts of Melbourne far removed from the proposed route of SRL East. In the eight years since a room full of PwC consultants started dreaming up plans for an orbital rail loop around Melbourne, the public transport needs of the city's fast-growing western and northern suburbs has gone from pressing to dire. Loading Former premier Daniel Andrews promised to electrify the Melton and Wyndham lines within weeks of unveiling his plans for SRL. While nothing has been done on the former, the latter is ploughing ahead despite Infrastructure Australia warning about the business case and funding model and the federal government privately urging the state to change tracks. Premier Jacinta Allan and many of her ministers remain convinced of the electoral popularity of the SRL. Two days after the federal election wiped out the last two Liberal-held seats in Melbourne's eastern suburbs and silenced murmurings around her leadership, Allan went so far as to suggest it's the SRL wot won it. Yet how can a Labor government, in good conscience, prioritise another rail line for a part of Melbourne already well serviced by public transport above the provision of basic transport services for communities living in neglected parts of the city? As one Labor MP who represents a Melbourne growth area explained, access to reliable public transport isn't just about moving people around or enabling townhouse and high-rise developments. Fundamentally, it is about opportunity to study, to work and to prosper. Loading That opportunity should not be equal only for people living east of the Maribyrnong River or inside Melbourne's ring road. The state and federal government's combined $4 billion investment to rebuild Sunshine station and untangle the knot of metro, regional and freight lines that run past its existing platforms is the first significant step towards modern rail transport for people living in Caroline Springs, Melton, Tarneit and Wyndham Vale. It should be the start of a more substantial pivot away from giving Melbourne's east what it wants and providing the west and north what they need. SRL East is a project which, in the unlikely event it is completed on time, will run its first service in 2035. Its opportunity cost is being counted now, on a daily basis, across health, mental health, education and other essential services, where jobs are being cut and agencies defunded. Loading In the new currency of Victoria's public sector, every metre of SRL tunnel equates to $130 million that could otherwise be spent on teachers or nurses or preventive healthcare or government schools. Before the last state election, when then opposition leader Matthew Guy promised to axe the SRL and redirect the money into hospitals, Daniel Andrews delivered a pithy retort. 'Not rail or hospitals,' he tweeted. 'Both.' It was a brilliant line and, as it turns out, complete bollocks.
The Age
25-06-2025
- Business
- The Age
Allan has time to abandon Melbourne's gargantuan folly. But it's about to run out
The way the SRL East contracts are structured, construction and engineering companies working on the project bill the state on a monthly basis. Under this pay-as-you-dig arrangement, consortia are paid profits only on costs they have incurred and work they have done. This means that if the government quit the SRL now, it could break the main works contracts it has already signed for a fraction of their nominal, $5.3 billion value. There are no hidden nasties like there were in the East West Link contract the former Coalition government booby-trapped for Labor on the eve of the 2014 state election. Once the tunnel boring machine is loaded onto freight transport in Guangzhou, the costs incurred by the main works consortia – this first to get its hands dirty is the Suburban Connect consortia comprising of Acciona, CPB Contractors and Ghella – will escalate quickly. By Christmas, the Victorian government will be standing deep in a hole at Clarinda with a choice only to keep digging. This calculus should be front-of-mind for anyone reading revelations by my colleagues Patrick Hatch and Kieran Rooney about the North West Strategic Assessment, a wafty title given to a secret government document detailing urgent rail projects needed in parts of Melbourne far removed from the proposed route of SRL East. In the eight years since a room full of PwC consultants started dreaming up plans for an orbital rail loop around Melbourne, the public transport needs of the city's fast-growing western and northern suburbs has gone from pressing to dire. Loading Former premier Daniel Andrews promised to electrify the Melton and Wyndham lines within weeks of unveiling his plans for SRL. While nothing has been done on the former, the latter is ploughing ahead despite Infrastructure Australia warning about the business case and funding model and the federal government privately urging the state to change tracks. Premier Jacinta Allan and many of her ministers remain convinced of the electoral popularity of the SRL. Two days after the federal election wiped out the last two Liberal-held seats in Melbourne's eastern suburbs and silenced murmurings around her leadership, Allan went so far as to suggest it's the SRL wot won it. Yet how can a Labor government, in good conscience, prioritise another rail line for a part of Melbourne already well serviced by public transport above the provision of basic transport services for communities living in neglected parts of the city? As one Labor MP who represents a Melbourne growth area explained, access to reliable public transport isn't just about moving people around or enabling townhouse and high-rise developments. Fundamentally, it is about opportunity to study, to work and to prosper. Loading That opportunity should not be equal only for people living east of the Maribyrnong River or inside Melbourne's ring road. The state and federal government's combined $4 billion investment to rebuild Sunshine station and untangle the knot of metro, regional and freight lines that run past its existing platforms is the first significant step towards modern rail transport for people living in Caroline Springs, Melton, Tarneit and Wyndham Vale. It should be the start of a more substantial pivot away from giving Melbourne's east what it wants and providing the west and north what they need. SRL East is a project which, in the unlikely event it is completed on time, will run its first service in 2035. Its opportunity cost is being counted now, on a daily basis, across health, mental health, education and other essential services, where jobs are being cut and agencies defunded. Loading In the new currency of Victoria's public sector, every metre of SRL tunnel equates to $130 million that could otherwise be spent on teachers or nurses or preventive healthcare or government schools. Before the last state election, when then opposition leader Matthew Guy promised to axe the SRL and redirect the money into hospitals, Daniel Andrews delivered a pithy retort. 'Not rail or hospitals,' he tweeted. 'Both.' It was a brilliant line and, as it turns out, complete bollocks.
AU Financial Review
12-06-2025
- Business
- AU Financial Review
Allan's SRL funding plan contradicts housing promise: property industry
The property industry says it is not financially viable to build new apartments under the Victorian government's Suburban Rail Loop plan because its funding model discourages property development, despite Premier Jacinta Allan insisting it is a housing project. Victoria has committed $12 billion of its own funds for the first stage of the SRL, known as SRL East, and is relying on the federal government to finance a third. The Allan government claims the remainder will be raised via value capture, using funds raised by increased stamp duty on commercial properties and levies on developers and residential car parking.
