Daniel Andrews ‘can’t say’ what full loop costs

Jacinta Allan said ahead of the 2018 election that the Suburban Rail Loop would cost ‘potentially up to $50 billion’. On Thursday the Premier disputed a PBO estimate of $125bn.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews in Melbourne on Thursday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Andrew Henshaw

Daniel Andrews has been unable to say exactly how much Vic­toria’s Suburban Rail Loop will cost to complete, despite his Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan stating ahead of the 2018 election that the cost would be “potentially up to $50bn”.

The Premier’s inability to put a price tag on the megaproject came as Victoria’s Parliamentary Budget Office on Thursday released figures showing the rail tunnel from Cheltenham in Melbourne’s southeast, via Melbourne Airport, to Werribee in the southwest, would cost $125bn.

An extra $75bn in operating costs would take the total predicted spend for the project to more than $200bn by the estimated completion date in 2084-85, according to the PBO’s independent analysis commissioned by the state opposition.

The Andrews government has put the first stage of the project, from Cheltenham to Box Hill, out to tender, costing it at $34.5bn, with approximately one-third of funding to come from the Victorian government, a third from the commonwealth, and a third from the private sector.

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy on Wednesday pledged that he would shelve the rail loop, and spend the money on Victoria’s ailing health system should he be elected in November.

Calls for solutions to the health crisis grew more urgent on Thursday as it emerged that an 83-year-old woman had spent more than 17 hours in a makeshift tent outside Box Hill Hospital, having arrived by ambulance after suffering a stroke.

Mr Andrews pledged to both fix the health system and build the rail tunnel, disputing the PBO figures and saying it was “just not right” that the loop could cost as much as $200bn.

“The first stage, (is) $34bn, exactly as we have announced. I’ll leave it to others to speak about the methodology that the Parliamentary Budget Office has used,” he said.

Asked whether Victorians had a right to know what the full project would cost, Mr Andrews said: “Well, it’ll be subject to procurement, it’ll be subject to how long it takes to get there.

“There was an estimate provided for the stage that is being built now. We won’t finish this project. It’s going to take many, many years to finish this project.

“The one thing that is absolutely certain is that if you delay it, it will cost more.”

Pressed on whether he could provide an estimate of the cost of completing the full project, Mr Andrews said he was “happy to have Jacinta (Allan) come back to you about estimates of what, not the bit that’s being built but the subsequent stages are.”

Ms Allan’s office pointed to the government’s business case for the loop, which estimates that the eastern and northern sections of the project would cost $30.8bn to $50.9bn, with much of the western part of the track linking in with the airport rail project, which has been separately costed at $8bn to $13bn.

Mr Guy dismissed Labor’s claims they could fix the health system and deliver the rail loop.

“They can’t do both because the state can’t afford $200bn on a railway tunnel with maybe some scraps left over for the healthcare system,” he said.

“The government continues to say that you can have everything … well, we’ve got a health crisis and the government that broke the health system will not be the government to fix it.”