Port of Melbourne lease billions to pay for infrastructure
ANALYSIS: A 30-YEAR blueprint of road, railway, hospital, and school building priorities is to be handed to the State Government by Infrastructure Victoria later this year.
Opinion
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A 30-YEAR blueprint of road, railway, hospital, and school building priorities is to be handed to the State Government by Infrastructure Victoria later this year.
Monday’s announcement that the lease of the Port of Melbourne would deliver $9.7 billion — or $11.1 billion if the Commonwealth coughs up the 15 per cent bonus its asset recycling fund was supposed to deliver — underlines its importance.
A North East Link road, connecting the Eastern Freeway to the Metropolitan Ring Road, may no longer be left in the too-hard basket.
Nor would an airport rail link, promised by the Coalition before the 2014 election but since put to one side.
Some Labor MPs are quietly championing another level-crossing removal blitz that would get rid of more than the 50 already promised.
Premier Daniel Andrews guaranteed all the port lease money would go into the Victorian Transport Fund.
He was keen to point out that the government was “fully funding” the $10.9 billion Metro Rail tunnel, so this windfall wouldn’t just be ploughed into that. “We haven’t yet determined where that additional capacity will go,” he said.
Coalition MPs were quick to say the government should no longer hide behind cost as an excuse for building sky rail on the Cranbourne-Pakenham line or for rejecting a South Yarra interchange station for the Metro rail project.
It also called for plans for an Uber and taxi “tax” to be dumped.
The Victorian Transport Association said: “We hope that vital new infrastructure such as the North East Link can be seriously pursued.”
One MP noted that one of the few problems resulting from such a windfall was that Victorians may begin to think that everything that is needed can be done.
The economy is growing and the state’s unemployment rate has dropped to 5.5 per cent, leaving Treasurer Tim Pallas unable to wipe the smile off his face.
Mr Pallas was quick to point out the importance of Infrastructure Victoria, which was set up to take the “politics out of infrastructure”, in guiding the state’s decision-making.
Despite that, there is one road that Mr Andrews won’t be backing with the extra billions sitting in state coffers — and that’s stage 1 of the $6.8 billion East West Link.
After dumping the contract to build it, and wasting $1.1 billion the Auditor-General said had been spent already, how could he?
But Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has said he would look to build the road “if the money is there” closer to the 2018 election.
At the moment, the government’s infrastructure plans include building the Melbourne Metro project, removing 50 level crossings, and getting road tolling giant Transurban to build the Western Distributor.
People sitting in packed train carriages or in freeway traffic jams will no doubt argue that many more roads and railway lines are still needed.
At least now there is more money to put towards fulfilling that need.
And since an extra 100,000 people are forecast to call Victoria home each year for the foreseeable future, don’t we need it.
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