Port of Melbourne lease is budgetary lotto win for Victoria

WITHIN minutes of the Andrews Government revealing it had won the equivalent of budgetary lotto through its Port of Melbourne lease, free advice on how to spend the cash began to flow.

• Port jackpot paves way for major project
• Analysis: Port lease billions to pay for infrastructure

WITHIN minutes of the Andrews Government revealing it had won the equivalent of budgetary lotto through its Port of Melbourne lease, free advice on how to spend the cash began to flow.

A new road here, a new train line there.

Dump the sky rail project, rule out taxes on taxis or to fund family violence initiatives.

Build more schools, help fund more in the early education sector.

MORE: Port deal injects billions into roads, rail

Premier Daniel Andrews and Treasurer Tim Pallas struggled to keep smug grins off their faces as they told Victorians the 50-year lease had fetched $9.7 billion.

That, Pallas told journalists, was almost $3 billion more than even he had dreamed of achieving.

Every dollar from the lease, which is set to reach financial close by the end of October, will be put into a transport fund to ensure it will be spent on infrastructure.

Then there’s the 15 per cent bonus promised by the Commonwealth through its asset recycling fund.

At the moment, the premier said, no decision has been made on how to spend the unexpected windfall.

“We haven’t yet determined where that additional capacity will go,” he said.

But it will go towards “vital transport projects that will create jobs and protect and enhance all the things we love about Melbourne and every community right across our state”.

Between now and May, when the State Budget is handed down, some of that money will get allocated.

An Infrastructure Victoria report due by the end of this year will help guide a lot of the process by recommending priorities.

Mr Palas said the result was almost $3 billion more than he dreamed of achieving. Picture: Greg Scullin

Infrastructure Victoria, you may remember, was set up to try to take the “politics out of infrastructure”.

Despite that promise there is one project Andrews won’t be backing in with the extra billions he has sitting in state coffers, and that’s the East West Link.

After dumping a contract for that $6.8 billion project, and so wasting $1.1 billion the Auditor-General said had been spent already, how could he?

Fortunately for the premier, he now has billions to splash on other big roads, tunnels, and train lines.

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy will also be planning where and what to build if he was to win the 2018 election.

With an extra 100,000 people calling Victoria home each year, there’s not another dollar to waste.

After all, the odds of winning budgetary lotto twice couldn’t be very high.

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