Alan Tudge says Melbourne is his biggest concern when it comes to fulfilling his role as Australia’s minister for ‘congestion busting’, and has again criticised the Victorian Government for its infrastructure record.
Addressing the first day of the National Infrastructure Summit in Melbourne on Wednesday, Tudge, minister for cities, urban infrastructure and population, described the Victorian capital as his “main concern over the medium term”.
“The Victorian Government has initiated many large-scale projects that will help transform the city, but most are still five, ten or more years away from completion,” he said.
“Metro Rail [the Metro Tunnel], which is critical to enable more train capacity on the entire network, for example, won’t be finished until 2025; Melbourne Airport Rail, which we kicked off with our $5 billion commitment, will commence construction in 2022; North East Link, another great project of which we have allocated $1.75 billion will open in 2027; and of course, the Suburban Rail Link will take decades.”
The minister’s comments are in line with his speech to the Property Council of Australia at the end of May, when he pinned congestion woes in major cities on alleged failures by past and current Labor Governments.
“Of course, the East West Link would have been finished this year (creating a ring-road for Melbourne) had it not been cancelled,” Tudge told the Infrastructure Summit on Wednesday.
“It still needs to be built and we are willing to fund the entire government requirement.
“We are in this situation in Melbourne in part because the population growth well outstripped expectations. In 2004, for example, it was projected that Melbourne would grow by 500,000 by 2017; it in fact grew by 1.2 million.
“Given the time schedules involved in the larger scale projects, it means it is even more essential to get fast traction on the smaller ones. It will also mean continued monitoring of population growth into the city through our new population planning framework.”
Tudge says the Coalition’s framework looks to strongly link population growth to infrastructure, service and housing approval capacity, while working with each state and territory to establish their own population plans, guided by their capacity and planned infrastructure spending.