Pallas evokes Paris in defence of $200b rail project for Melbourne
Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas has compared the controversial $200 billion Suburban Rail Loop to the 200-kilometre Grand Paris Express currently under construction, but conceded the Labor government’s project might not be completed in his lifetime.
Natasha Bradshaw, an associate in The Grattan Institute’s transport and cities program, last week urged new Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan to scrap the Suburban Rail Loop and defer any unnecessary transport expenditure to ease pressure on costs.
Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas has defended the government’s controversial Suburban Rail Loop, saying politicians must have the resolve to follow through on election promises. Joe Armao
But the premier ruled this out in her first official conference, saying “Victorians voted for the Suburban Rail Loop. They voted for it twice.”
Mr Pallas, having just told a property industry event that the state government will expand its vacant residential land tax, was on Tuesday asked a simple question by Kingfisher Recruitment founding director Rohan Christie: “if debt for the state is a major consideration, why is Suburban Rail Loop continuing?”
The Victorian treasurer said politicians must have the resolve to follow through with major infrastructure projects that have received the approval of voters.
He compared the Suburban Rail Loop, which would follow a 90-kilometre loop from Frankston in Melbourne’s southeast bayside to Werribee in the western suburbs, to the Grand Paris Express, a $58 billion project, decided by former president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2010, that will double the French capital’s existing network when completed in 2030.
“I sometimes despair about public life in the sense that if governments have gone to an election on two
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