In October 2024, it was revealed that Victorian taxpayers paid more than $32.9 million to 102 executives working on the Suburban Rail Loop Authority (SRLA), averaging $322,000 a head.
“It seems pretty clear from the annual report that we don’t have a railway line as much as we have a gravy train”, former Liberal Opposition Leader John Pesutto said.
Considering this background, it was interesting to see SRLA board member James MacKenzie write a spirited strawman defence of the controversial $200 billion SRL project in The AFR. His key arguments are presented below followed by my rebuttal.
“Long-term planning and courageous decisions are essential for addressing challenges such as population growth”…
“With Melbourne’s population projected to almost double by 2050, such investments are critical to meeting future housing, employment and commercial needs”.
“Population growth data underscores the urgency for action. In 2008, Sir Rod Eddington’s Investing in Transport report for Victoria used ABS data that forecast Melbourne’s population would reach 5 million by 2050. This milestone was surpassed decades ahead of schedule”.
“Plan Melbourne now targets 8 million to 9 million residents by 2050. The post-pandemic rebound in population growth indicates this target may be exceeded, making proactive planning essential. Without action, Melbourne risks unsustainable urban sprawl, a scenario all policymakers agree must be avoided”.
“If not the SRL, then what?”…
“Alarmist rhetoric about the long-term cost of projects is unhelpful and politically motivated”…
“Baby Boomers and Gen X have benefited enormously from the foresight of past leaders, and it is now our turn to act. The SRL leverages decades of investment in Melbourne’s precincts, transforming them into dynamic hubs of activity. This project requires patience, stewardship and bipartisan support from government and the private sector”.
Just because Melbourne’s population is projected to grow like an out-of-control science experiment via mass immigration does not justify the enormous cost of the SRL.
The independent Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) estimated that every dollar spent on the first two stages of the SRL (60 km) will result in social benefits ranging from only $0.60 to $0.70.
An investigation from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO), which is responsible for ensuring all federal government funds are spent legally, advised that the business case used to request $11.5 billion in federal funding for the SRL’s first stage had information gaps and used spurious methods to quantify the SRL’s benefits.
ANAO stated that the project’s first stage (SRL East) did “not present a reasonable investment”.
The reality is that taxpayer funding is limited and must be spent prudently on projects that deliver the biggest returns.
The SRL fails this basic test and diverts scarce funding away from projects that would benefit Melbourne’s growth corridors in the west.
According to The Age, Melbourne’s west has absorbed significantly more population increase than any other section of the city, with growth twice as fast as the east since 2001.
“I don’t think people yet grasp just how big this region is and how rapidly it’s growing”, says Peter Dawkins, former vice chancellor of Victoria University, the west’s only university, between 2011 and 2020.
The Labor government has also set ambitious housing targets for Melbourne’s west over the next decade.
The number of dwellings in Melton is expected to increase by 190%, Maribyrnong by 114%, and Wyndham by 110%.
However, these communities already lack infrastructure, which will further worsen as their populations grow.
While the Victorian government is forging ahead with the SRL, diesel trains continue to serve Melton and Wyndham.
“It’s crazy. You should have seen kids walking for kilometres to catch a bus”, western suburbs bus campaigner Senthil Sundaram said. “They’re paying $1 million for a house, paying all their taxes and then living like [in] a Third World country”.
“We’re in a very desperate situation where we need to see more investment as we continue to grow”, Melton Mayor Steve Abboushi said.
Meanwhile, leaked modelling of future demand for the SRL revealed the line’s alarming underutilisation.
The leaked analysis shows that by mid-century—when Melbourne houses eight million people—there would be only 24,000 trips a day between the first two SRL stations, Cheltenham and Clayton, in Melbourne’s southeast.
It shows that by the same year, trains running between Sunshine and Footscray in Melbourne’s booming west, would be crammed with a whopping 270,000 passengers…
Labor ministers say the data was not shared with Cabinet, which was kept in the dark during key decision-making processes for the SRL…
One Labor minister said the data was not shared with other MPs at the time and that there was little information provided about modelling during decision-making.
“This is exactly why they didn’t bring the SRL to the general Cabinet … at the decision-making point,” they said.
Vested interests like SRLA board member James MacKenzie cannot sugarcoat the malfeasance of this project.
By rejecting expert advice and signing contracts to build the SRL, the State Labor government has committed Victorian taxpayers to decades of crushing debt and lower living standards in exchange for a ghost train to nowhere.
Residents in Melbourne’s fast-growing west will suffer the most from Labor’s folly.
