This was published 7 months ago
Peter Dutton’s $900m Frankston train line pledge derails on day one
By Bianca Hall and Broede Carmody
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s $900 million proposed Frankston rail upgrade has derailed on its first day, with Victorian Labor rejecting it out of hand and the state opposition stopping short of backing it.
Dutton appeared in the heart of the Dunkley electorate on Friday, ahead of a byelection there, where he announced that if his party won the next federal election he would commit to a 50-50 partnership with “a future Victorian state government that is willing to deliver this project”.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton was flanked by federal colleagues in Frankston on Friday.Credit: Eamon Gallagher
Hours later the Allan government’s leader in the lower house, Mary-Anne Thomas, described Dutton’s pledge as a “sham commitment” and “hollow promise”.
“The answer is no,” she said.
“This was a commitment that they took to the people of Frankston in 2018 and failed to deliver while they were in government,” said Thomas, who is also Victoria’s health minister.
“They had a business case that didn’t stack up then. It doesn’t stack up now. The people of Frankston, the people more broadly of Dunkley, can see through this for exactly what it is.”
Dutton’s pledge came with a month to go before Dunkley goes to a byelection on March 2.
He was flanked by federal Liberal and National colleagues Senator Bridget McKenzie, Senator Jane Hume, Flinders MP Zoe McKenzie, and Dunkley candidate Nathan Conroy. No Coalition Victorian parliamentary MPs were present at the announcement.
The next federal election is due to be held by next year, while Victorians are not due to return to the polls to choose the next state government until the end of 2026.
The Victorian Coalition took a Frankston-Baxter rail line extension to both the 2018 and 2022 state elections.
On Friday, deputy Liberal leader David Southwick stopped short of formally recommitting to the policy, but suggested he was open to once again backing it with money freed up from not building every stage of Labor’s Suburban Rail Loop.
“By not putting all our eggs in one basket, a future Liberals and Nationals government will be better positioned to fund critical infrastructure projects across the whole state – including those like the Baxter rail extension,” Southwick said.
The federal government scrapped funding for the planned Frankston to Baxter rail update last year, after a national infrastructure review released in November recommended 12 infrastructure projects in Victoria be axed to keep spending within $120 billion and leave headroom for other projects.
Dutton accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of breaking a promise to the people of Dunkley by acting on the review’s advice and axing the upgrade.
“The prime minister provided a rock solid guarantee to the people of Dunkley that the Labor government would invest in this project and he would deliver the project soon … he’s now walked away from that project. It’s another lie by the Anthony Albanese government. And we’re here today to say to the Australian public [that] when we make a promise, we deliver on it.”
The $900 million promise is by far the most expensive policy proposal for a single piece of infrastructure of any federal byelection to occur this term, underscoring the importance of the seat to Dutton.
During last year’s byelection in Aston, in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, the Liberals had campaigned for federal Labor to reinstate more than $200 million in funding for upgrades to Dorset, Wellington and Napoleon roads.
At the time, Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King accused the Coalition of conning voters by arguing more than $1 billion was actually required. She said while the road works were not unworthy, they were unaffordable due to budget pressures.
In contrast, the key issues at the 2023 Fadden byelection were cost of living and robo debt, not local infrastructure. The division of Fadden, which lies on the Gold Coast, is a safe Liberal seat.
The president of the Rail Futures Institute, John Hearsch, told The Age the Frankston-Baxter line upgrade would not be high on his to-do list.
“It’s a nice-to-have, but not an urgently needed, project,” he said.
“One project which is of far higher priority is the extension from Cranbourne to Clyde. It’s an area that’s going to soon have well over 100,000 population. They’re served, by and large, by relatively poor bus services.”
Victoria’s net public debt is expected to hit $211.4 billion by June 2027, a figure equivalent to about 32 per cent of the state economy. That same financial year, Victoria is tipped to be forking out $10.2 billion on its annual interest bill – up from $6.7 billion this financial year.
With Lachlan Abbott
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