Federal fears over $200bn Melbourne rail plan

The Auditor-General has been asked to investigate Canberra’s investments in the Suburban Rail Loop Project as experts question plans to turn Melbourne into a Japanese-style super-city.

An artist's concept of a Suburban Rail Loop station at Melbourne’s Cheltenham.

The Auditor-General has been asked to investigate Canberra’s multibillion-dollar investment in Victoria’s Suburban Rail Loop project – costed at up to $200bn – amid doubts about its future and cost-effectiveness.

Coalition senator Bridget McKenzie has written to Auditor-General Grant Hehir outlining her concerns about the financial risks involved in the project for both the commonwealth government and taxpayers following Canberra’s decision to provide $2.2bn towards the project.

The request comes as Labor’s plans to turn Melbourne into a Japanese-style super city have alarmed population and planning experts who believe the project is “fraught with problems’’ and fails to address growth in the city’s outer suburbs.

The Allan government is in the first stage of planning to rezone large areas of Melbourne to increase density around Suburban Rail Loop stations, which will include allowing high-rise ­development in areas that will be put under state control.

Artist’s impression of a Suburban Rail Loop train.

The project will mean 4500 hectares of land between Box Hill and Cheltenham will be under the control of the Suburban Rail Loop Authority, which will be exempt from planning laws.

RMIT planning expert Michael Buxton said while the plan looked to cater for population growth, it failed to recognise the immediate and urgent transport infrastructure needed in Melbourne’s growing outer suburbs.

“It’s really trying to cater for … a large part of the future population in Melbourne in 25, 30 or even 40 years time. But the construction is starting now and it’s taking all the public transport ­dollars for an indefinite period of time,” he said. “There are many projects, public transport projects, which are more urgent for the population today. For example, a million new people are moving into Melbourne’s new urban growth corridors … with the worst public transport in Australia.”

Australian Population Research Institute president Bob Birrell said while higher density would provide more small apartments during a housing crisis, the homes would be too expensive for people looking for “family friendly housing”.

“The government will have to give up on its insistence that fringe development must slow drastically. Because realistically, it’s in the fringe areas where there’s huge acreage potentially zoned for development,” he said.

“The notion that people will crowd around these loop stations is a big ask when other alter­natives are available.”

Former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews and current Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan at the site of the Suburban Rail Loop project at Melbourne’s Clayton. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

A Victorian government spokesperson said the government “can’t afford to not invest in city-shaping projects that will provide jobs, more housing options and keep our city moving”.

“We need more housing options, closer to jobs, services and good transport connections – that’s exactly what SRL will deliver,” they said.

However, state opposition planning spokesman James Newbury slammed the plans, which he said would leave 150,000 Victorians without any say on what happens in their own streets.

“What’s concerning is we have a housing crisis in Melbourne but no proper plan to deal with it,” he said. “The federal Labor government … is letting hundreds of thousands of people into Australia, a third of whom are coming into Melbourne, and rather than the state government having a proper plan to deal with it, they’ve designated five areas so far where the local communities will have no say. That’s not a proper plan.”