VIC:Labor says rail cost blowout not its fault

AAP General News (Australia)
04-05-2011
VIC:Labor says rail cost blowout not its fault

By Melissa Jenkins and Edwina Scott

MELBOURNE, April 5 AAP - The Labor Party has denied it is responsible for a cost blowout
for Victoria's regional rail link.

The coalition government announced on Tuesday the project will go ahead but it will
be up to $1.5 billion over budget and at least two years late.

After reviewing the Labor-initiated project, which was previously costed at $4.3 billion,
the state government has decided to proceed.

But the rail link won't be finished until 2016 at the earliest and is now expected
to cost up to $5.8 billion.

Work on the rail link is being tendered in seven separate packages.

Opposition public transport spokeswoman Fiona Richardson says Public Transport Minister
Terry Mulder is misleading the public on the project's cost because most of it has not
been put to tender yet.

"We have heard a lot of weak excuses from a weak minister whose heart has never been
in this project," she told reporters.

"The assertion that the minister is making is that he can somehow look into the future
and see what the cost of those tenders will be."

When pressed by journalists on whether Labor's $4.3 billion price tag was actually
a guesstimate, Ms Richardson repeatedly answered that the full cost of the project would
be known once all of the tenders have been returned.

Greens Western Metropolitan MP Colleen Hartland said the government's announcement
would give residents in limbo certainty surrounding the project.

But she said residents whose homes had been compulsorily acquired in Footscray, particularly
the elderly, should not be forced out of their homes by August this year.

"It's going to be delayed by two years. Why not allow those people to stay in their
houses? Their houses have been acquired but why not just let them stay there?" she told
AAP.

"Relocating before they need to just doesn't make a lot of sense."

Treasury has found the former government under-costed the project by between $700 million
and $1.1 billion.

Signalling and control systems, land acquisition and rising construction costs have
chewed up about $900 million in contingency money, which was included in the initial budget.

The revised price tag includes items not previously budgeted for - $259 million for
34 V/Line VLocity train carriages and $150 million for two grade separations at Anderson
Road, Sunshine.

When the rail link is complete, major regional lines, including Geelong, Bendigo and
Ballarat will, for the first time, have their own tracks into Melbourne.

It will mean V/Line trains won't be held up by breakdowns on the metropolitan network
and vice versa.

AAP mj/gfr/dep

KEYWORD: RAIL VIC (VIDEO AVAILABLE)

� 2011 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.