When it comes to Victoria, there’s scarcely been any political project or policy that’s been so vehemently rejected by the public than the failed East-West Link.
Daniel Andrews and the Labor Party ran an entire successful election campaign purely on the platform of scrapping it.
The pet project of the previous Liberal State Government helmed at various points by both Ted Baillieu and Denis Napthine called for a giant road tunnel to be dug and built underneath the inner-Melbourne suburbs of Collingwood, Fitzroy, Carlton, and Royal Park, with the subsequent toll link to connect the congested Eastern Freeway and the city’s pre-existing CityLink tollway.
Melburnians fucking hated it.
They hated it so much that they torched Napthine and the Liberal party at the 2014 State Election, even going so far as to give the otherwise reasonably safe Liberal seat of Prahran to the Greens, if you can believe it.
Napthine’s Government was so utterly focused on pushing the project through in the months leading up to a likely election loss that they hastily signed $1.5billion worth of contracts, fully aware that Andrews intended to scrap the project entirely. This meant that Napthine’s Liberal party was effectively forcing Andrews to fork over hundreds of millions of state dollars in contract withdrawal fees, gaining the Liberal party political capital in the immediate period following the election. As you bloody do with taxpayer funds, y’know.
The Abbott Federal Government was hella keen on building the road project as well, and allocated some $3billion in Federal funding to Victorian infrastructure projects. But when Andrews and Labor took hold of office and decided that the far more popular Melbourne Metro rail project would be the one that gets the go-ahead instead, that money suddenly got locked up.
Abbott’s regime effectively held the money in a “lockbox,” and stated that Victoria was welcome to the allocated funds, provided they were for the East-West Link and nothing else.
$1.5billion of the money had already gone to the Victorian Government, and was subsequently placed into a secure State Treasury-controlled account, where it current still sits, acquiring interest.
With the 2016 Federal Budget set to drop at the beginning of May, and with Victoria’s state budget subsequently pulled forward to April 27th in order to get ahead of Canberra, Spring Street is once again angling for Federal funding to help contribute to the Metro rail project, which will see a new rail tunnel built underneath the CBD in order to expand Melbourne’s rail network into a world-class mass transit system.
However, the Turnbull Government appears set to give Melbourne the shaft by doggedly asserting that the previously allocated $3billion will remain on offer only in the event that the East West Link project gets revived.
Even further still, despite being more than ready to cough up three times one billion dollars for a road project, the popularly-approved Melbourne Metro has so far been allocated only $10million in Federal Government money.
A letter obtained by Fairfax Media, penned by treasurer Scott Morrison and addressed to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and state treasurer Tim Pallas confirms the Government’s intentions to pursue the roads-first infrastructure policy set by the previous Abbott regime.
“Our offer of $3 billion still stands should any Victorian Government choose to proceed with the project.”
The $1.5billion currently in Victoria’s hands will not be sought by the Government, on the condition that it is matched dollar-for-dollar by the Victorian Government on various road projects such as the Western Ring Road upgrade, the Monash Freeway upgrade, and the upgrade of the freight rail line at Murray Basin.
“Both our governments can agree that the people of Victoria would rather we proactively work together and get on with building the infrastructure that will make a difference to their lives.”
Which is a fine statement, sure. It’s just that last time the Victorian people were actually asked about what project they’d prefer we all pretty emphatically stated rail. But hey, it’s only a Federal Election year after all. What could possibly go wrong by supporting something we hate?
ALSO HI. AIRPORT RAIL LINK. EASIEST VOTE GETTING THING IN THE WORLD. FUCKING BUILD IT ALREADY.
Honestly, the closer the speculated election gets, the more the Turnbull Government stops looking like functional legislators and starts looking like Two Guys From Kabul.
