Daniel Andrews under fire over ‘Grand Theft Auto’ toll roads

Transurban will reap $37bn after investing just $4bn to build the Andrews government’s West Gate Tunnel, new analysis shows.

Transurban will reap a $37bn in extra tolls over the next 25 years. Picture: David Caird

Infrastructure company Transurban will reap a nominal $37.3bn in extra tolls over the next 25 years in return for investing just $4bn to build the Andrews government’s West Gate Tunnel, according to analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office.

Victorian Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien has slammed an arrangement which will see CityLink users tolled for an extra decade as a “dodgy deal”, saying motorists using the road daily will pay an extra $87,060 and a total of $161,000 in tolls between July 1 this year and 2044-45 to pay for the $6.7bn tunnel.

Under the deal between Labor and Transurban, CityLink tolls will increase by 4.25 per cent each year over ten years.

“The independent Parliamentary Budget Office has blown the whistle on the worst deal for motorists in Victoria’s history,” Mr O’Brien said.

“This is Labor’s Grand Theft Auto: $87,000 of extra tolls under Labor’s dodgy deal with Transurban.

“Who does a deal where Transurban puts in $4bn and gets $37bn out of it?

“Daniel Andrews is treating Victorian motorists like a broken pokie machine that only pays out. This is a shocking deal for motorists.

“This is going to increase people’s cost of living, and this shows why Daniel Andrews was wrong to sign up Victoria to this terrible deal with Transurban. Transurban shareholders are laughing but Victorian motorists will be crying and crying for many years to come.”

Coalition treasury spokeswoman Louise Staley said 71 per cent of the total toll increase to pay for the West Gate Tunnel would come from road users on other parts of the CityLink road network, which connects Melbourne Airport to the southeastern suburbs and Westgate Bridge.

“These are people who are not even using the Westgate Tunnel, and we don’t think that’s fair,” Ms Staley said.

“We think they’ve already paid for their road. They pay their tolls and yet this dodgy deal will have them signed up for decades to come paying additional tolls totalling $87,000 per driver, per motorist, just to pay for a road that they may never use.”

Work is already underway on the tunnel, but the Coalition remains hopeful it can work with the 11-member upper house crossbench to oppose a bill currently before parliament legislating the deal between Transurban and the state government.

Earlier this month Labor used its 22-seat majority in the lower house to pass legislation locking in an extra ten years of tolls on the existing CityLink road network.

The Coalition failed to secure sufficient support to block the toll extension in the 40 member Upper House, where Labor has 18 seats and the opposition 11.

Treasurer Tim Pallas is expected to respond to the Parliamentary Budget Office findings later today.