Election 2025: Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan refuses to give up on Labor’s signature Suburban Rail Loop

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan is digging in behind Labor’s signature Suburban Rail Loop, as federal election battle lines sharpen over funding the controversial project.

Premier Jacinta Allan during question time at Victorian parliament. Picture: NewsWire / Aaron Francis

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Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan is digging in behind Labor’s signature Suburban Rail Loop, as federal election battle lines sharpen over funding for the controversial project.

Ms Allan said on Tuesday she remained “determined” to build the Suburban Rail Loop, despite Peter Dutton’s pledge to scrap all federal funding for the project should the Coalition win the May election.

However, Ms Allan would not specify how the state – which is projected to reach net debt of $187.3bn by mid-2028 – would pay for the Suburban Rail Loop without federal funding, or how much it would cost Victorian taxpayers should it be cancelled.

“We already have $14bn allocated to this project, which is more than enough to get this project to where it is, and to continue to build and invest in this project,” the Premier said.

“My approach to whoever is in government in Canberra will be to fight for Victoria’s fair share of infrastructure funding.”

The Victorian government plans to fund the first stage of the project – the $34.5bn Suburban Rail Loop East, to run from Cheltenham to Box Hill – through one-third federal funding, one-third state funding and one-third “value capture”.

Ms Allan insisted her government had a Suburban Rail Loop “partner” in the Albanese Labor government, despite it so far providing only $2.2bn of the $11.5bn of federal funds her government is banking on.

She slammed Mr Dutton’s promise to cancel federal funding of $2.2bn for the Suburban Rail Loop East and $2bn for Sunshine railway station, which she said was consistent with a broader failure of federal Liberal governments to provide Victoria with its “fair share” of infrastructure funding.

Speaking in Victoria on Tuesday, Mr Dutton declared he would “get this great state going again” by redirecting the funding to other Victorian road and rail projects, including investing $1.5bn into Melbourne’s long-awaited airport rail link.

“Jacinta Allan is obsessed with the Suburban Rail Loop,” Mr Dutton said.

“We’re not going to continue with the Suburban Rail Loop because it’s a $200bn pipe dream, and Jacinta Allan and Anthony Albanese and the CFMEU are the only ones that are in favour of it.

“You’ve got Jacinta Allan, Anthony Albanese and the CFMEU joined at the hip.

“I’m breaking that cabal up for the benefit of Victorians.”

Teal independent Zoe Daniel, whose electorate of Goldstein takes in parts of Cheltenham, said there had been a lack of transparency in the state government’s Suburban Rail Loop business case.

“No further federal funding should be allocated to it unless the business case stacks up,” Ms Daniel told 3AW on Tuesday.

“It would seem, actually, that the opposition and I are somewhat aligned on this.

“The question then becomes how do you roll back a project that has already begun, and how do you extricate yourself from contracts for not only initial works but tunnelling from my electorate to Glen Waverley and also Glen Waverley to Box Hill?”

Mr Albanese said Victorians had been “completely neglected” in infrastructure investment by three previous Liberal prime ministers, who saw themselves as the “prime minister for Sydney”, and said this would be the case with Mr Dutton as well should the Coalition form government.

Victorian Opposition Leader Brad Battin – who has committed to matching the federal Coalition’s $1.5bn for the airport rail link should his party win the 2026 state election – continued to call on Ms Allan to cancel the Suburban Rail Loop.

“We can’t continue down the path with a project that’s a vanity project of one premier,” Mr Battin said.