Matt Johnston: West Gate Tunnel cost blowouts a cruel joke to taxpayers
Andrews government ministers will have a lot to say when they announce more West Gate Tunnel cost blowouts – but don’t expect a proper apology.
Opinion
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The West Gate Tunnel is now officially a joke.
How else could you describe a toll road that was contracted for $6.7bn blowing its budget to $10.6bn?
The project, which was supposed to allow for a ribbon-cutting by Premier Daniel Andrews in time for the 2022 state election, will now be lucky to finish before 2026.
Treasurer Tim Pallas and Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan will front the media on Friday and tell us that a deal to share costs – with “tough negotiator” Transurban forking out half – was the only way to get this “much-needed project” built.
How they manage to keep a straight face while delivering such lines stumps me.
The WGT was promised after Pallas and Andrews dumped the East West Link stage one.
Labor argued that project didn’t stack up and broke contracts, throwing away $1.2bn spent.
A deal on that project, which remains a “priority” according to Infrastructure Australia, had been inked for $6.8bn.
In a fit of desperation they then pivoted to a market-led proposal by tolling giant Transurban.
Talk about inviting the tiger around for tea.
What you probably won’t see on Friday is Pallas apologise.
Andrews is on holidays so he certainly won’t be saying sorry.
Nor will Pallas admit how bad this is for taxpayers, despite promising the public wouldn’t dig Transurban and its contractors out of their dispute.
This road is a special case – and I mean that in the worst possible way.
But it is not the only project that has blown its budget, with the Metro Tunnel costing an extra $2.74bn, of which taxpayers will pay half.
That’s a combined blowout of $6.66bn on two pieces of infrastructure.
Just think what that could have been spent on as the state tries to climb out of a pandemic-sized economic hole.
What a sick joke.
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