Jeroen Weimar refuses to provide clear answer on the Suburban Rail Loop being completed within budget
Jeroen Weimar has refused to “stake his job” on the controversial Suburban Rail Loop project remaining within its $34.5bn budget during a heated parliamentary inquiry hearing where the panel was accused of misleading the Victorian public.
Victoria’s transport and planning boss, Jeroen Weimar, has refused to “stake his job” on the Suburban Rail Loop being completed within its $34.5bn budget during a fiery parliamentary inquiry hearing.
The Department of Transport and Planning Secretary appeared before the state’s Public Accounts and Estimates Committee on Wednesday morning, where shadow minister for jobs, industry and industrial relations Richard Welch pressed him on potential future blowouts and rising input costs on the controversial infrastructure project.
Mr Weimar was asked whether any “input costs” had increased since 2018, but he and Suburban Rail Loop Authority (SRLA) chief Frankie Carroll declined to say whether any of the project’s costs had risen in the past six years.
Mr Carroll responded that the “initial early works are on budget”, at $2.2bn.
He also said the upcoming tunnel packages were on track to be under their budgets of $3.7bn and $1.7bn.
But neither would answer whether input costs for the whole project had increased since the business case was drawn up in 2019, or whether there would be future budget blowouts.
A frustrated Mr Welch said: “I want this question answered, and the Victorian people want this question answered. How can you have maintained the same costs as 2019 in 2025? … Are you telling this committee and the parliament of Victoria that not one single input to this project has gone up?”
Growing more frustrated Welch accused the panel of “obfuscating” and misleading the Victorian public on several occasions, prompting chair Sarah Connolly to reprimand him multiple times, warning him “throwing around those kinds of accusations is incredibly serious”, and to “control your temper”.
After being asked multiple times, Mr Weimar said the business case accounted for costs going up over a 15‑year period and that, to his knowledge, no costs had gone up.
Mr Welch then pressed: “Tell me this, Mr Weimar … would you stake your job on the $34bn figure? Would you stake your job on it?”, however, Ms Connolly shut the interaction down before Mr Weimar said: “I take exception to the question, but I’ll move on.”
The fiery questioning by a clearly frustrated Mr Welch on the SRL continued for another five minutes.
Mr Weimar also asked about the Allan Labor government’s plan to use “value capture” — funding recouped from taxpayers through new taxes and levies — to raise up to $20bn to contribute to the project.
Mr Weimar said he had “every confidence” the funds would be raised because it was mentioned in the 2019 business case, but he admitted he was unaware of what the value capture proposal would include as it is a matter for the Department of Treasury and Finance.
Mr Welch’s frustration boiled over on the third day of hearings, during which multiple department secretaries and executives did not answer questions or handballed them to other departments. One MP told the Herald Sun: “This year’s panel is a new low for PAEC. We have bureaucrats showing up and not answering questions they have answered many years before. They don’t seem to have basic costs for how much programs and services are. It’s just extraordinary.”
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Originally published as Jeroen Weimar refuses to provide clear answer on the Suburban Rail Loop being completed within budget
