Steve Price: Some outrageous remarks were made during the election but Allan’s ‘gaslighting’ takes the cake

Mere hours after the Federal Election, the Premier — with a straight face — boasted that her loathed pet project SRL was “a key reason” Labor won seats in Victoria. What a joke.

Amid all the bluster of the federal election campaign and outrageous quotes from politicians and inflated promises made and broken, our own premier Jacinta Allan took out the gold medal.

So crazily insane were the Victorian Premier’s comments at a media appearance after polling day I thought someone was using a fake social media account to embarrass her.

The Premier, in a moment of madness, decided it would be a good idea to take the six Victorian MPs whose electorates the loathed SRL will run through, to a tunnel boring site in suburban Clarinda.

Knowing she would get questions about Anthony Albanese’s mighty election victory, Allan got straight onto the front foot.

Just by the by, there is not actually any tunnelling happening at Clarinda, it’s a tunnel boring machine launch site with no dirt dug until early next year.

Victorian Premier Jacinta believes her loathed pet project was a key reason Labor was re-elected.. Picture: NewsWire

The Premier pulled on her trusty white hard hat and orange high-viz vest, and with a straight face boasted her pet project was “a key reason” that federal Labor won seats in Victoria. She said this with a straight face in one of the biggest gas lighting attacks on the Victorian public ever seen.

Not even Daniel Andrews at the peak of his powers would have had the hide to make such an absurd statement.

Allan appeared not to realise – or is fooling even herself – that standing at a dormant tunnelling site bragging about how the SRL helped win the federal election was so insulting to the federal Labor MP’s that will form Government, as to be delusional.

Canberra is still refusing to put any more than $2.2 billion toward this vanity project estimated to cost a crippling $34.5 billion, and probably more. It got worse from the premier – if that’s possible – as she claimed again straight faced that SRL “has the support of the Victorian community”. She went on: “I’m not focused on commentators; I’m focused on what Victorians are saying to us.”

What about facing up to the truth, Premier.

Not even former premier Daniel Andrews would have had the hide to make such an absurd statement. Picture: David Caird

If you really believe that, why not then run a Statewide plebiscite with a simple question: Do you support the suburban rail loop project? For yes, tick box one, for no, tick box 2.

You won’t do it, I suggest, because we all know the answer.

Allan uses the election victory by Dan Andrews in 2022 as a spurious reason to claim the ALP has a mandate to further bankrupt the state with an underground railway that travels around outer Melbourne, with stage one starting in Cheltenham and ending up in Box Hill.

The numbers will never add up and the claims of funding this thing from selling the air above train stations and forcing developers to pay more to build along the route – so called value capture – have been shot down by real estate experts and economists.

During the pre-election manoeuvring, federal Transport Minister Catherine King and Treasurer Jim Chalmers made it clear the federal government was more interested in an airport rail link not the SRL and said $2.2 billion was it, for funding.

Chalmers made the point there was no extra money in the forward estimates in his Budget.

In February, around three months out from the election, minister King said her department had approved the funding contingent on Victoria providing a business case. She then told voters this: “I’ve been consistent to say there are still hurdles the Victorian government will need to overcome … particularly the costings around value capture before the Commonwealth can make another investment.”

Allan was quick to gather the masses after Labor took out the federal election. Picture: NewsWire

Pretty clear to me what she was saying.

King and other federal Labor MPs made it clear they were keener on airport rail rather than this expensive circular loop from the southeast to the west.

It will be most interesting now though, with federal Labor on an upward trajectory, and with a massive mandate and probably a near guaranteed further two terms and six years in office – whether they decide to support their Victorian colleague who, if she survives, will face voters late next year.

Allan, as we know, is from Albanese’s left faction and has tied her time as premier to this transport folly.

You just wonder though how voters living in Far North Queensland or regional NSW – let alone country Victoria – would feel about their tax dollars being poured into a project they would only ever use if the airport component was finally constructed.

On election weekend I travelled again on the brand new Sydney Metro from the Barangaroo station to Chatswood and the Westfield shopping complex. The route travels underneath Sydney Harbor, trains are driverless and travel at more than100 km/h and come and go at three-minute intervals, with automatic platform doors giving access.

The trains were packed and spotless, the stations brilliantly designed, graffiti free and spectacular. All that works, but guess what else works, the Metro system takes you from places you want to be, to places you want to go to, and with the bonus of simply tapping your phone or credit card at the entry and exits without the need for a separate travel card.

Victorians loathe Jacinta Allan’s pet project, the Suburban Rail Loop. Picture: Mark Stewart

I wrote about this remarkable Sydney system back in February and when you add to that a new series of tolled road tunnels like the new M8 from the domestic airport up and over the Anzac Bridge to the CBD in 10 minutes or so, you realise how far Melbourne has fallen behind.

Sydney has a system of trains, buses and ferries all inter-connecting with each other like a truly international city should.

Melbourne might have an enviable tram network but on many train lines you can’t even travel direct between Flinders Street and Southern Cross station. The stations themselves are a national disgrace, filthy dirty and smeared with graffiti and hosting empty retail outlets.

Next week I’m going to take a train between Melbourne (Southern Cross) and Bendigo. Laughingly called the V-Line express service, it will take 90 minutes to travel 150km.

Contrast that to September when I’m taking a train in Italy from Bologna to Florence. It’s 119km and on the 7.02am express I’ll be there in 37 minutes.

Jacinta Allan isn’t soley to blame for the Suburban Rail Loop fiasco and I am certainly not blaming her for the decaying state of public transport in our city and state, but she has served as Transport Minister and Minister for Infrastructure Projects – her fingerprints are all over it.

The SRL is scheduled to be completed in total by 2053 – if I stay healthy, I’ll be able to drag my 98-year-old self, using my seniors card, on board for a ride.

Can’t wait!!

Likes

• DJ and ex Greens leader Adam Bandt lost his seat of Melbourne to Labor… maybe tying himself to sex toy marketeer Abbie Chatfield wasn’t such a great idea

• Teals on the run with Zoe Daniels gone

• Oscar Piastri wins again making it three F1 wins in a row and four for the year

Dislikes

• Defeated Liberals turning on each other like rabid dogs even trashing the idea of nuclear power

• Victorian government turns to a retired Kiwi Mike Bush to run our police force in the middle of a youth crime crisis

• Stonnington Council thinking it can fix a decimated Chapel St with a few park benches and a street sweeper

Originally published as Steve Price: Some outrageous remarks were made during the election but Allan’s ‘gaslighting’ takes the cake