Wednesday, 17 June 2026

 David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (10:35): I move:

That this house:

(1)   notes:

(a) a report by Infrastructure Australia in 2025 that questioned the financial viability of the Victorian government’s Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) East project;

(b) that the Infrastructure Australia report advised that before committing further funding to SRL East, the federal government should receive and approve at least the following additional information from the proponent:

(i) an updated and detailed cost estimate for the SRL East and supporting station precinct interventions;

(ii) a comprehensive funding and financing strategy with supporting quantitative analysis that details how value capture will fund one-third of SRL East’s cost;

(iii) analysis (including cost–benefit analysis) that demonstrates the benefits of the SRL East in terms of social, economic and environmental outcomes and its contribution to the SRL program;

(iv) contingencies and an ‘exit strategy’ should the project experience cost blow-outs or funding shortfalls or where expected benefits fail to materialise;

(c) that in 2026, Infrastructure Australia revised its views on the project, presumably based on information provided by the Victorian government;

(d) that this supplementary information provided by the Victorian government has not been made public; and

(2)   requires the Leader of the Government, in accordance with standing order 10.01, to table in the Council within 30 days of the house agreeing to this resolution, a copy of the information provided to Infrastructure Australia relating to paragraphs (1)(b)(i) to (iv).

This documents motion pertains to the release of updated data on the Suburban Rail Loop East, the SRL. From the outset I want to say that this motion is entirely about transparency. Legalise Cannabis Victoria is not interested in pointscoring. This is not about whether this is a good piece of infrastructure or otherwise. It is about this government’s financial decisions. As I spoke about in my response to the budget, how governments invest our money is about choices and priorities. It is about opportunity cost. That which is spent on one thing cannot be spent on another. How does a government accord appropriate priorities? The SRL may have great merit, but what is it costing us? We do not know, because the government continues to rely on a 2019–20 cost plan. This cost plan makes a provision in the variation to cost of plus or minus 6 per cent, and it is waved around as though it is a great truth. But the reality is that construction costs in that same time have increased by between 20 and 40 per cent, not 6 per cent. This government, if it was taking in a cost plan or a proposal for development, would never accept a five-year-old cost plan.

Infrastructure Victoria were clearly not comfortable with the numbers. Last year they evaluated the SRL business case and advised the federal government that the project was financially risky, insufficiently detailed about value capture and potentially overoptimistic about its benefits. They even asked if there was an exit strategy, and that is an unusual question from Infrastructure Australia. Is there an exit strategy? The public has a right to know. How much will it cost? The public has a right to know. What does the cost–benefit study show? The public has a right to know. What is the return on investment?

Twelve months after expressing scepticism in the costings and the benefit of the project, Infrastructure Australia gave it the green light for the federal government to move forward with funding stage 1 as an immediate priority, apparently satisfied that their questions had been answered. We also have a right to know what the state government provided to prompt Infrastructure Australia’s startling about-face. If there were simply documents provided and that satisfied Infrastructure Australia, well, that is fantastic. Let us see them. Let us understand the persuasive argument that was provided by the state government. However, there is a counternarrative: FOI documents released to the Australian show that their concerns were not in fact meaningfully resolved before the project was elevated to priority status. Instead, the SRL was deemed ‘investment ready’ because billions had already been committed, major contracts had been signed and construction had begun. Further, the FOI documents unearthed emails between the state and federal governments which reveal that in their assessment of SRL East, Infrastructure Australia was pressured to remove environmental concerns, which would have been even more damning.

As I said, this is not about the merits or otherwise of the project. Infrastructure Australia CEO Adam Copp did note in a recent interview that Melbourne will soon be Australia’s largest capital city and that by 2065 Melbourne will be the size of London. So it makes sense to move away from Melbourne’s monocentric hub-and-spoke network. The question is: how do we best solve that, and what are the opportunity costs of continuing to pour billions of dollars into what appears to be a bottomless sinkhole of cash when projects like Melton and Wyndham Vale electrification are continually pushed back? I would also suggest that public trust is another very real opportunity cost of this project, given the government’s refusal to reveal even the most basic information about the updated costs and the cost–‍benefit of the SRL.

As I said, this piece of infrastructure may indeed have merit, but it is the most expensive infrastructure project in Victoria’s history. It is Victoria’s AUKUS, and as such it must be afforded the highest level of scrutiny. The absolute lack of transparency around this project is somewhat, I am afraid to say, typical of the government’s modus operandi. Is it any wonder that One Nation is thriving in this vacuum of public trust? I need to be able to look my constituents in the eye and tell them at the very least that I have done my best to give this project the transparency it requires. All members in this place should be able to do the same, and this motion simply seeks to give life to that basic responsibility that, as members in this place, is central to our being. It is why we are here. I would just like to emphasise that the government needs to step up and not wave around a five-year-old cost plan and business case but tell us what is actually happening. I commend this motion to the house.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (10:41): Despite Mr Ettershank’s exhortations that he is not standing up to attack the Suburban Rail Loop, he spent 5 minutes doing exactly that. I think it belies the fact that Mr Ettershank clearly does not support investment in rail infrastructure in Melbourne and he does not want to invest in city-shaping infrastructure projects, because all we have heard from Mr Ettershank this morning, despite him saying, ‘I am not up here to criticise,’ is him spending 5 minutes, maybe 6, outlining a litany of alleged concerns with the project that are deaf to some of the facts. I want to use this contribution to go through particularly what we have in the public domain from Infrastructure Australia about their views on the SRL, because I would not want the debate to be left solely informed by the anti-transport critique of Mr Ettershank in his contribution today.

What we have seen from this state Labor government is decision after decision after decision to invest in the critical rail infrastructure that our city needs, whether it is the Metro Tunnel, whether it is doing cross-suburban rail like the Suburban Rail Loop or whether it is spending the $4 billion in partnership with the Commonwealth to transform Sunshine, to disentangle the lines and set up the west for the investments that it needs that cannot happen without those works. This government has a demonstrated track record of investing in infrastructure. The Suburban Rail Loop is but one of those projects.

We heard criticisms of the Metro Tunnel from the Liberal Party before it was delivered by Labor. They called the project a hoax. We had a federal Liberal government that cut billions of infrastructure funding committed from the previous Labor government to the Metro Tunnel, so on the Metro Tunnel Victoria had to go it alone. What we have seen now is almost a redux of that, where we have got criticism after criticism after criticism that is not grounded in reality, the same way they said that we could not build the Metro Tunnel, that it was a hoax. The critics line up and say the same things now about the Suburban Rail Loop. They were wrong then; they are wrong now.

Let us get to what the Commonwealth has said and done and what Infrastructure Australia in particular has said and done. Mr Ettershank, in his contribution, quoted a 2025 Infrastructure Australia report that he said was critical of the project. Well, that was the report that then saw the release of $2.2 billion of Commonwealth money flow to the project. That was in 2025. In 2026, after further discussions and analysis, what we have seen from Infrastructure Australia is not a repudiation of the SRL but an endorsement of it. What Infrastructure Australia has said is that the Suburban Rail Loop is and should be on the national infrastructure priority list – not a Victorian government body, not a body that is controlled by Victoria but an independent agency of the Commonwealth, kicking the tyres of a project that has been the subject of the sort of criticism that Mr Ettershank has levelled at it since it was first announced. Time after time after time, whether it was before the 2018 business case was announced and released or since that time, when further work has been done by Infrastructure Australia, those who decry investments in rail infrastructure, like Mr Ettershank did today, have continued to criticise the project. After putting this project on the national infrastructure priority list, the CEO of Infrastructure Australia said:

… we do see the connections around Melbourne’s outer suburbs are a really important way to spread the population of Melbourne going forward and make sure that people can move around more effectively.

…

The productivity of our economy and livability of our cities is all hinged on investing on the right infrastructure at the right time …

That is what the SRL does.

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (10:46): I thank Mr Ettershank for bringing forward quite a good motion on the Suburban Rail Loop. I too agree with it and support this motion completely because this project does require transparency. There are a number of things that Mr Batchelor went to that I just want to speak to, and I note the absence of quite a few of his colleagues, who would, I assume, privately express dismay at this project. As we know from the Age and the Australian Financial Review in the last fortnight, supporters of Mr Carroll supposedly planned on pausing the Suburban Rail Loop and redirecting funding into other projects. Isn’t that funny? But we know that this project is a dog’s breakfast, and we know what Infrastructure Australia said. Infrastructure Australia said they had low confidence in the $34.5 billion price tag, and they called for an exit strategy. We know from documents released to the Australian that the agency’s position shifted not because concerns about the project’s viability were alleviated but because the Allan state government had already committed billions of dollars and signed major construction contracts, making the project difficult for Infrastructure Australia to ignore.

We know this project is going to cost over $15 billion over the next four years. That is one-fifth of the state’s infrastructure projects. That includes school builds and hospital builds as well. So when the government cry foul or make a huge scare campaign about cuts to hospitals and cuts to schools which do not exist, know that they are spending one-fifth of all infrastructure in this state over the next four years on one project in the eastern suburbs. As revealed by the Treasurer last sitting week, the value capture portion is not $11.5 billion. It is not. She said it was going to be greater than that. Do you know how it is going to be greater than that? The budget papers say that it will be paid up-front and then paid back over a 40-year period and also include existing land tax and windfall gains tax and stamp duty to put towards the project, removing it from consolidated revenue that funds schools and hospitals.

Let me point out how the 40-year loan works. For any loan over 10 years, the yield on a Treasury Corporation of Victoria loan is about 6.25 per cent. So this government will be paying over $28 billion in interest for the $11.5 billion value capture component without even paying the $11.5 billion, because the Treasurer revealed it also includes interest. This is an absurd amount of money to be paying on one project. What it also reveals is that the SRL North will have to never go ahead. You are spending such a huge amount of money on SRL East that we know SRL North could literally never happen. You have not planned for it. You have not even told us where the stations are. It has got it on the map that it will be at Heidelberg station. How are you going to deal with the trains going under hospitals with the medical equipment there? Are you going to do what you did with Arden and pay tens of hundreds of millions of dollars to fix that issue? It is absurd. The government and their spinners will say we cannot look at the SRL East section without the SRL North section, but you are never going to build SRL North, so this project will never have a positive cost–benefit ratio. You are spending one-fifth of all infrastructure on this.

I did a bus tour with Mrs McArthur and Mr McCracken last week, thanks to Melton City Council, showing the infrastructure that needs to be urgently upgraded on their roads and their public transport network, which has been neglected by this government for years and years and years. And I will tell you what, it is the same in the north. Go around Mitchell shire or go around Hume, and it is the same: completely neglected. Where are the local members? The member for Kalkallo has had no conversations with her constituents.

No wonder all these members who were at the cabinet table completely rolled over on the Premier spending an absurd amount of money. SRL East alone is going to cost well over $60 billion and probably closer to $80 billion – just one project from Cheltenham to Box Hill. It is an absurd amount of money, which is why the only responsible thing to do – and what the Liberals and Nationals commit to doing – is pause and review this project in the financial interests of all Victorians.

 Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (10:51): I am happy to get up again on a short docs motion before this chamber, this one today from Mr Ettershank – thank you very much. Can I just reaffirm that, as per convention, the government will not oppose this motion. In fact I certainly welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and place on record the significance of the Suburban Rail Loop as a project that will shape Victoria for generations to come. We are a government that believes in building – building public transport infrastructure, building homes and building for the future. On the other hand, others in this place have consistently opposed or sought to delay these investments, offering Victorians cuts and uncertainty.

The Suburban Rail Loop is a state-shaping project that will transform how Victorians move around our city. It will cut travel times, reduce congestion and deliver heavy rail connections to two of Australia’s major universities. But it is not just about how Victorians move. The SRL is Australia’s largest infrastructure and housing project. You have heard it here in this chamber before from the former minister for the SRL: it is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape our city, connecting Victorians to jobs and education services and supporting sustainable growth in the middle suburbs. These communities have voted for this over and over again, and they are getting it, with the project powering ahead as crews prepare for the launch of tunnel-boring machines. That is going to happen later this year. This ambitious project has not only been backed in by Victorians at the ballot box but has also been strongly supported by our partners in Canberra and recognised by independent experts as a project of national significance. The Commonwealth government’s billion-dollar investment demonstrates clear confidence in the Suburban Rail Loop, and the broad base of support underscores that the SRL is a necessary and carefully considered investment in the future of our state.

We have just heard from Mr Ettershank and also Mr Mulholland, and what we have heard are some questions that have come to us as well as some very strong positions on this project. There were questions about when it will impact other areas across the state, including in the Northern Metropolitan Region, and I just want to place on record my support for transport infrastructure and for the Suburban Rail Loop. This is a project similar to the Metro Tunnel in the change that it will bring about for Victorians and how they move about the state, and what we are seeing here are enormous benefits for how people will move around the state, including to university. You only need to go to Parkville station to see the numbers of people that are using Parkville station and how those opportunities have now been opened up for kids that previously thought Melbourne Uni was just a little bit too hard and a little bit too far. I imagine that it will open up similar opportunities for folks considering Monash University. The truth is that what we are offering Victorians is a future with more opportunities and more access to the world-class jobs and homes, which I think folks are going to take up with absolute gusto.

I have only got 30 seconds, so can I just say this project is backed by both the Commonwealth government and Infrastructure Australia as a project of national priority, and importantly, it is progressing as planned, providing certainty for workers, communities and investors alike. At a time when our city is growing rapidly, this is exactly the kind of forward-looking investment Victoria needs, and this government will continue to get on with it. I will just reaffirm our position that we are not opposing this documents motion.

Motion agreed to.