Tony Abbott has used the announcement of joint funding for Melbourne’s M80 Ring Road project to take a shot at the Victorian Government, leading Anthony Albanese to label the prime minister’s infrastructure plan a ‘con’.
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews on Friday announced the state and federal governments would each contribute $150 million to the upgrade of the M80 between the EJ Whitten Bridge and the Calder Freeway.
The work is part of the full M80 Ring Road Upgrade, which is a $2.25 billion project to be jointly funded by the Commonwealth and Victoria.
“The [M80] Western Ring Rd is at breaking point, causing delays, hassle and congestion for motorists in Melbourne’s West,” Andrews said.
“The Victorian Government will continue to work cooperatively with the Commonwealth to deliver infrastructure projects that Victorians need.”
While he agreed with Andrews’ on a collaborative approach, Prime Minister Abbott used the M80 announcement to needle the premier for his decision to cancel the East West Link – a collaborative project between the Commonwealth and the former Victorian Government.
“Despite the Victorian Government’s disastrous decision to cancel the East West Link project, the Commonwealth Government stands ready to fund credible, shovel-ready infrastructure proposals in Victoria so that we can create jobs and drive economic growth,” Abbott said on Friday.
“This M80 Ring Road project is shovel-ready, it is endorsed by Infrastructure Australia, and it is essential to the future operation and linkage to the proposed Western Distributor project – or the East West Link.”
Andrews kicked off an inter-governmental feud earlier this year when he cancelled the East West project in favour of the Melbourne Metro rail project.
He especially drew the ire of the prime minister, who favours federal funding for road over rail projects.
But critics of the prime minister’s ideology have suggested that it too often goes against the advice of Infrastructure Australia – the independent body set up by the former Federal Labor Government.
One such critic – perhaps the loudest – has been shadow minister for infrastructure Anthony Albanese.
Unsurprisingly, Albanese used the M80 funding announcement to once again attack the prime minister’s transport agenda.
Albanese – who was the responsible minister for IA when it was established – said it “should not be forgotten” that Abbott ignored IA’s advice to back the upgrade in 2013.
“Instead, he transferred a $500 million M80 investment allocated by the former Labor government to the proposed East-West Link toll road without even seeing a cost-benefit analysis on the project,” Albanese said.
“It has since emerged that East-West Link toll road is a dud that would return a paltry 45 cents in public benefit for every dollar invested.
“Mr Abbott’s fake infrastructure narrative is now in tatters.”
Albanese believes Abbott has failed to follow through on a pre-election commitment not to fund any infrastructure projects worth more than $100 million without published cost-benefit analysis “ticked off by IA”.
The shadow minister has accused Abbott of having “feigned commitment to funding projects on the basis of their economic merit, rather than his political interests”.
“After the election, he tore funding away from IA-assessed projects like the Melbourne Metro and Brisbane’s Cross River Rail Link and allocated it to projects which, like the East-West Link, had not been the subject of independent analysis to determine whether they represented value for money,” Albanese argued.
He said the M80 funding had only been made by the Commonwealth due to backlash in Victoria over the Federal Budget, which only allocated 8% of the government’s total infrastructure spending to Victoria, despite the state having 25% of the national population.
“Mr Abbott’s contempt for expert advice is further highlighted by his decision to slash Infrastructure Australia’s funding from $15 million this year to $8 million by 2018-19,” Albanese added.
The prime minister said the Commonwealth looks forward to working with the Victorian Government, “to deliver a consistent pipeline of infrastructure that Victorian commuters desperately want and need”.