Melbourne Airport Rail Link project set to be mothballed for years
The Melbourne Airport rail link is now set to be mothballed for years, despite $630m already being spent on the stalled project.
Victoria
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The $10bn Melbourne Airport Rail Link project is set to be mothballed for years following a review of federally funded infrastructure projects.
Land that had been taken over for the project’s early works is now being prepared to return to its previous use.
Tens of millions of dollars to be spent on remediation will effectively tie off sites while the project remains dormant.
No decision has been formalised on how long the link – which federal and state Labor promised at last year’s elections – will be stalled.
But an independent review of the nation’s $120bn infrastructure pipeline has been sent to the federal government and will soon be considered by the state government.
Sources familiar with the airport rail link said residents would soon be told of disruption in their neighbourhoods, but this would be to “close off” sites where utilities were shifted and enable the mega project to be effectively mothballed.
The imminent decision to stall the project, which the Andrews government last year said was “much needed”, comes despite state budget papers showing $630m has already been spent on the link between Sunshine station and Tullamarine that was supposed to open in 2029.
Insiders point to that figure being $160m higher than forecast in the previous year’s state budget, and said this was partly related to the extra work needed to make live sites stagnant.
The state government argues the figure is higher because more work was done in the past financial year than was expected in the 2022 budget.
Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan on Sunday refused to confirm whether the Airport Rail Link will go ahead as the state government waits for a crucial federal government review.
When asked if the Andrews government was still committed to building the $10bn project, Ms Allan said they would have to continue waiting for the long awaited federal government infrastructure review.
“We’ve said all the way through, the airport rail project and particularly early works we can see on the suburban rail loop and airport link that are happening right now demonstrates that this is an important project for the Andrews Labor government,” she said.
“In terms of what we’re wanting to see from the federal government, we really do have to wait for the federal government to release further details of the review that they’ve commissioned.
“I’m not going to speculate on a review that we neither commenced or party to in terms of the information that’s being received by the federal government.”
State and federal Labor figures are divided over the decision to stall the rail link, which Premier Daniel Andrews last year lauded as part of his $125bn Suburban Rail Loop and his government said was a “boon for the people of Melbourne’s west”.
Ms Allan used the project before the state election to attack the Liberal Party for its promise to review the SRL due to budget pressures, saying it would put “thousands of jobs at risk and (leave) hundreds of thousands of Victorian stranded”.
Despite acknowledging the disastrous budget positions, some Labor MPs questioned the decision to halt airport link work given the longer the project is mothballed the higher its eventual cost will be.
A spokeswoman for federal Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Minister, Catherine King said the proposed Melbourne Airport Rail link was an important infrastructure project for Victorians.
“We have received the report of the Independent Strategic Review of the Infrastructure Investment Program. We are discussing its findings with the States and Territories to ensure we invest in good projects that benefit communities and deal with the clogged the $120 billion dollar infrastructure pipeline. No decisions have yet been taken as part of those discussions,” she said.
“The states and territories are our main delivery partners so it is important that projects have the support of both the commonwealth and the relevant jurisdiction so we don’t see projects that are undeliverable, stall and blowout in cost as they did under the Liberals and Nationals.”
A state government spokesman said: “Early work is continuing on SRL Airport Rail as we await the outcome of the federal government’s national infrastructure investment program review.”
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