Melbourne Airport rail link locked in with $5b pledge from state government
MALCOLM Turnbull is “delighted” Victorian premier Daniel Andrews will match the Commonwealth’s $5 billion pledge towards Melbourne’s long-awaited airport rail.
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MALCOLM Turnbull is “delighted” Victorian premier Daniel Andrews will match the Commonwealth’s $5 billion pledge towards Melbourne’s long-awaited airport rail.
The Prime Minister said today the project was finally out of the “too-hard basket”, having been talked about “since the 1960s”.
He said the federal and state governments were “equal partners” in the “shared project”.
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“I have had a number of very good meetings with the Premier Daniel Andrews,” Mr Turnbull said in Townsville this morning.
“I’m delighted that today he has confirmed that Victoria will commit the same amount of money.. (and) will enable us together to build the rail line from Melbourne to Tullamarine airport.”
Work on Melbourne’s long-awaited airport rail link will begin within four years, with the state government today pledging up to $5 billion to get the project built.
The Sunday Herald Sun can reveal the new link, talked about for decades but now locked in to Victoria’s infrastructure agenda, will cost between $8 billion and $13 billion.
Premier Daniel Andrews will today declare he will match a Turnbull Government funding commitment of up to $5 billion, meaning for the first time a Tullamarine airport rail line has the money needed to fly.
In a major election-year pitch that will spur on an infrastructure frenzy in Victoria, Mr Andrews said it was time to “get on and build” the much-hyped project and he would do it next term.
The premier said his commitment meant the new line would be built at the same time as the final stages of the $11 billion Melbourne Metro rail tunnel under the CBD — with construction to start by 2022.
“Only Labor has removed the level crossings and built the Metro Tunnel — and only a re-elected Labor Government will deliver the Melbourne Airport Rail Link,” he said.
“This project has been talked about for too long, it’s time to get on and build it and that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
Early works on a rail line business case have shown the best route would be through Sunshine in Melbourne’s west, with experts rating it as 4.3 out of 5 — higher than all other options.
As the Sunday Herald Sun revealed last month, this route would pave the way for a super station to be built in Sunshine that would also be a major interconnector for better services to Ballarat and Geelong.
Under the proposed Sunshine route, trains would travel along the existing Sunbury line, before heading north on the new tracks built along the Albion East rail reserve.
This would also include some tunnelling to minimise or potentially avoid acquisitions of homes and businesses.
A full business case spelling out the benefits and costs of each route will be finished next year.
Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan said the state’s preferred option would also maximise the number of people likely to use the new line.
In April, Mr Turnbull said the “time for talk is over” and the train service would finally become a reality if the Victorian Government hopped on board.
He wrote to Mr Andrews calling for a 50-50 contribution to the “iconic piece of infrastructure”.
The state’s agreement to this today is also a major step in a thawing of the relationship between Mr Andrews and Mr Turnbull — both of whom want to be known as infrastructure builders.
Four routes for the Tullamarine line are being considered, including two through Maribyrnong to also cater to communities where Commonwealth land is being developer.
However, that would require extensive and expensive tunnelling.
Governments, public transport advocates and tourism groups have repeatedly talked about the world’s “most liveable city” needing a rail line to its major airport but the project has been repeatedly overlooked.
Federal opposition leader Bill Shorten and state opposition leader Matthew Guy have also backed a link in the past but are yet to lay out their full pre-election transport plans.
— additional reporting by Selby Stewart
@Media_Matt
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