By Lucy Cormack and Michael McGowan
Sydney’s Metro West mega rail project connecting the CBD to Parramatta will cost more than $25 billion, the new state government has revealed, after the price tag was kept secret by the former Coalition government.
Internal briefings given to new Transport Minister Jo Haylen have underscored the true cost of the 24-kilometre line, with the Labor government warning the project is one of a number of significant transport and infrastructure challenges inherited from its predecessors.
The Sydney Metro West Bays Station construction site in Rozelle.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
It is the first time official figures have confirmed this figure since the Herald in 2021 revealed a warning to the former government that the project risked blowing out to $26.6 billion, then nearly $3 billion more than earlier internal estimates.
Haylen did not provide comments about the projected cost. However, a government spokesman said it was concerned the former government did not do enough to ensure value for taxpayers.
“Our predecessors were never upfront about the true cost of Sydney Metro West, and we are now seeking answers about this project,” he said.
“Sydney Metro West needs to be delivered in a cost-effective way. Taxpayers should have confidence they are getting the best value for money. ”
Since taking office the Minns Labor government has sought briefings on Sydney Metro West and other major infrastructure projects as a matter of priority.
The cost of the Coalition’s landmark Metro rail projects became a key issue during the March state election after Labor refused to back the former government’s promise to spend $260 million in planning for four new lines.
Instead, then-opposition leader Chris Minns said Labor would not proceed with business cases to connect the Metro West from Parramatta to the new airport line, or the troubled Southwest Metro, until it better understood the cost of both projects following a series of delays and blowouts.
While then-premier Dominic Perrottet attacked Minns over a “lack of vision” for cancelling the projects, Labor criticised the former government for failing to identify how it would pay for the new Metro lines amid a rancorous debate over the state’s ballooning debt.
“The decisions that we’ve made in relation to early planning stage money for the Metros in Sydney are about making sure we can look at the loop, that Metro loop for Sydney,” he said in February.
Minns repeatedly accused the former government of promising $50 billion worth of unfunded liabilities, including Metro lines from Parramatta to Badgerys Creek and Bankstown to Glenfield.
The former government repeatedly refused to confirm a projected dollar figure for Metro West, despite concerns the cost of land acquisitions along Sydney’s east-west spine and the CBD would run into billions of dollars.
When the Herald first revealed a major cost blowout in February 2021, then-transport minister Andrew Constance said he would not comment on “an internal working document of the Department which does not reflect a final decision”.
At the time, confidential documents seen by the Herald suggested the cost of building the underground line would be significantly greater per kilometre than the City and Southwest project, and the Northwest rail line from Rouse Hill to Chatswood which opened in 2019.
with Matt O’Sullivan
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