Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan dodges questions on $3 billion Metro Tunnel budget blowout estimates
Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan has refused to rule out a $3 billion-plus budget blowout on the government’s flagship Metro Tunnel project, after work ground to a halt last week.
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Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan has refused to rule out a $3 billion-plus budget blowout on the government’s flagship Metro Tunnel project, after work ground to a halt last week.
Massive boring machines stopped digging in a dramatic escalation of the costs dispute between the Andrews Government and the consortium building the mega-project.
A mediator has been called in to handle the fight, with industry and union sources estimating that cost overruns could total $3 billion.
The state opposition called on the Auditor-General to investigate the ballooning costs.
Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan today dodged questions about whether she could “categorically” rule out budget blow outs of more than $3 billion.
“There is a lot of speculation going on that’s been put out there by the Opposition,” she said.
“We have got the project up and running … we have always said and we have always understood that the Metro Tunnel is a big and complex project.”
Again asked about cost overruns, Ms Allan said it was “difficult to respond to the wild claims” by the Opposition, accusing the former Coalition government of having “ran away” from the project.
“Unlike the Liberal Opposition when they were in government, we didn’t run scared, we didn’t run away from those challenges when they were presented to us,” she said.
“We’ve rolled our sleeves up and been determined to deliver the Metro Tunnel.”
Opposition public transport spokesman David Davis raised a series of concerns in his letter to the Auditor-General, including “poor initial scoping” and specification changes.
He said that issues with station boxes and vents would add “considerably” to the project’s cost, and even suggested that tunnel’s planned power infrastructure may be “inadequate” for high-capacity trains.
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“It may be that your office decides that the scale and complexity of this project justifies additional and early auditing given the importance of risk in setting priorities,” Mr Davis said.
“It is my information that the consortium undertaking the project at the behest of government have become increasingly concerned at the risk and cost trade-off between completion as planned in 2025 and management of the risks to the consortium of the accelerated work requirements directed by government.”
The 9km tunnel between South Yarra and Kensington — including five underground stations - is due to open in 2025.