Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews will match a $5 billion commitment by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for the planned rail link to Melbourne Airport if re-elected this November, with construction to begin by 2022.
Andrews made the funding pledge on Sunday, tying his Labor Party to a figure matching the commitment of the Federal Coalition which, in its FY19 budget, said it would provide $5 billion to the project, potentially via an off-budget equity financing model.
Turnbull welcomed the state government’s announcement.
“I have had a number of very good meetings with the premier, Daniel Andrews, and I’m delighted that today he has confirmed that Victoria will commit the same amount of money,” the PM said on Sunday.
“I’m confident that… $10 billion will enable us together to build the rail line from Melbourne to Tullamarine Airport.”
The state government’s preferred route for the project – which it estimates will cost between $8 billion and $13 billion – is the so-called Sunshine alignment (previously called the Albion East alignment) which would connect the airport and Melbourne CBD via new “Sunshine Super Hub” linking with Geelong and Ballarat regional lines and metro train lines, including the new Metro Tunnel project.
“We were never going to agree to just an airport rail link, it can be an airport rail link and it can unlock capacity for rapid, fast services to Geelong and Ballarat,” Andrews said, announcing the funding commitment.
“It’s the alignment, it’s the corridor option that stacks up best.”
Victoria’s transport minister Jacinta Allen said the Sunshine route would utilise existing track and thus require less tunnelling and fewer acquisitions of business and residential property.
“This is really maximising and leveraging the investment that will be made in connecting the airport and this will see Sunshine become a major transport hub,” Allan was quoted by the ABC.
“It is a logical location for this rail link to go through as it provides the wonderful connection into the regions and into the suburbs.”
The federal government had until recently favoured a direct tunnel route between the CBD and the airport via Highpoint – which would, according to the state government, cost approximately double the Sunshine alignment, at $20-22 billion – as it would incorporate 127-hectares of Commonwealth land at Maribyrnong which is planned for development.
However, according to a recent Herald Sun report, the federal government is increasingly coming around to the state’s view. Moreover, the airport’s operator, Australian Pacific Airports Corporation, has also announced that the Sunshine route is, in its view, the best option.
Victorian opposition leader Matthew Guy was mystified that any other options other than the Sunshine route were considered, with the The Age reporting him saying that he believed it was always the obvious pick.
“That was really the only sensible route,” Guy was quoted as saying. “Why would you suggest any other route when you’ve got the Albion rail link which is broad and standard gauge, operating within five or six kilometres of the airport?”
“The upgrade of that line, connecting back to the airport was the most sensible, obvious, straightforward way to do it. It’s amazing it’s taken the government nearly four years to come to that realisation.”
Guy said that the Coalition, too, would go ahead and build the Sunshine route if elected to government in November.
According to the Victorian Government, the precise costings and detailed route alignment for the project would be presented in a full business case which is to be completed by Rail Projects Victoria in 2019.