Federal Labor Infrastructure Minister Catherine King has backed the Melbourne Airport rail link as an “important project” and renewed the government’s $5bn commitment to help fund its construction.
In the midst of a stand-off between the Allan Government and Melbourne Airport that has stalled the link for at least four years, Ms King moved to renew the Albanese Government’s
support while acknowledging the dispute was a major hurdle.
“Melbourne Airport Rail Link remains an important project for Victoria which is why the Albanese Labor Government retained $5bn for its construction in the recent Review of the Infrastructure Investment Program,” Ms King said.
“We will continue to work with the Victorian Government on the planning for this project, but the reality is that until an agreement is reached with Melbourne Airport on where the station will be located, the project cannot commence.
“We recognise the enormous construction pipeline of significant projects already underway in Victoria and want to support the Victorian Government in ensuring that Victorians get the infrastructure they need.”
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Delivering his tenth budget on Tuesday, Mr Pallas all but axed the link to Melbourne Airport and lashed the private operators as nothing more than a “big car park operator”.
“Of course, were the airport operator to see reason and maybe become a good corporate citizen instead of being a big car park operator then perhaps we might be able to move it forward,” Mr Pallas said.
Mr Pallas doubled down on his criticism of the airp[ort on Wednesday, warning the private operators that unless they fast-tracked building a third runway, the government might look at investing in more transport to rival Avalon Airport.
“It’s about time Melbourne Airport appreciated that they should get on and deliver their third runway. They’ve got very substantial challenges that they have to confront in terms of community concerns about that third runway,” he said.
“And I’m getting increasingly concerned about whether or not as a state, we shouldn’t be putting an each way bet around Avalon, and starting to think about what they can do in terms of provisioning for our transport needs going forward.
“What we are saying is either they sort out this problem and they make it a priority to sort it out, or the government is going to have to look at better provisioning for airport passenger transport than what is available from Melbourne Airport. Because at the moment it’s all road transport, and it’s carparks.”
In the wake of the treasurer’s budget comments, Melbourne Airport reiterated its support for the project and pointed to its involvement in a consortium willing to pump $7bn into the rail line. The standoff centres around the airport wanting the station to be underground and the government insisting on a cheaper, above ground design.
Former Melbourne Airport CEO Lyell Strambi has slammed Mr Pallas’s comments as “absolute nonsense” saying the airport had always been “enormously supportive of rail”.
“The problem with their ‘above ground’ solution is that it’s an obstruction to the future development of the airport which is always a worry, allowing that to happen,” said Mr Strambi who is now on the board of Brisbane Airport Corporation and Aurizon.
“It would come into the airport so high, I think it was level 5 or 6 of the car park, and to get to that level it doesn’t pop up at the last minute, it sweeps in over the last 2km over the entire precinct so you’ve got this huge monolith that will forever be in the way of any development in and around that airport. It not only affects the road it also affects the ability to develop your terminals so it’s not a great solution.”
He said there was never a disagreement over the need for rail and the suggestion the airport was “just there to protect car park revenues” was nonsense.
“Carpark revenues will continue to be strong because a lot of people want to drive to the airport and the existence of rail won’t change that,” said Mr Strambi.
“The airport did engage with the state government for at least 12 to 18 months on their solution trying to find ways to make that work so it’s not through any lack of effort to deliver rail.”
He questioned whether the state government was simply making excuses for their lack of ability to fund the project.
“If the airport rolled over all of a sudden and said ‘we will take this above ground solution’ I suspect the government would have heart palpitations around how they might even fund that. It’s a very convenient excuse,” he said.
“To say the airport has been working against it is absolute nonsense.”
The longer it took for the rail link to be built, the more difficult it would become, Mr Strambi said.
“It’s not impossible, just harder all the way along that line because of natural development,” he said.
“The best time to build that rail is today because it gets harder and more complex as things develop and change around it.”
Australian Newspaper
