Source : Perth Now news
A contentious mega rail project is getting a $2 billion haircut through scope changes and a technical review.
Victorian Premier Ben Carroll has taken a scalpel to Suburban Rail Loop East, a long-time pet project of the Labor state government, 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 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 promised to find $2 billion in savings, including an immediate $1 billion by cutting “unnecessary additions” to 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.
An SRL 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.
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.
It takes the revised estimated spend for SRL East to $33.3 billion.
“I respect your money,” Mr Carroll said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The SRL will be built on time. Today’s changes mean it will be built under budget.”
The changes will not slow current works, with tunnel boring machines to enter the ground on schedule, Mr Carroll added.
As of the May state budget, $13 billion of construction contracts had been awarded for the project, including $5.3 billion for tunnelling.
No more contracts will be signed until the review is complete.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government set aside an extra $3.8 billion for the massive infrastructure project in the federal budget, taking its total expected spend to $6 billion.
Despite the Victorian budget edging towards $200 billion in net debt by 2030, the state government has committed to funding a third of the project’s cost.
It has pushed the Commonwealth to match that, with the other third of funding expected to come from “value capture” such as elevated land tax revenue.
The Victorian coalition has vowed to “pause and review” the project if it wins the upcoming election.
