In March 1964, during question time in Victorian state parliament, the member for Broadmeadows John Wilton asked the minister for transport Edward Meagher the following question:
“What is the estimated cost of implementing the proposed plan announced by him last year to link the Tullamarine jetport by rail with Melbourne?”
Mr Meagher responded that he expected his announced railway to the Tullamarine “jetport” would cost £1.5 million.
If you are wondering how long Melburnians have been asking about a train to the airport, the answer is: since before Australia changed over to the dollar.
Now, 60 years on from that question being asked in state parliament, the Victorian government has once again dashed any dreams of a train to the airport arriving any time soon.
In Tuesday’s budget, the Allan government confirmed the Airport Rail Link connecting Melbourne’s CBD with its airport would be delayed once again.
Why hasn’t Victoria built an airport rail link?
Since the 1960s, governments from both sides of politics have promised, then backtracked, then promised again to build a train to the airport.
A bill to build a railway line out to Tullamarine broke down in the late 1960s following disagreements regarding the optimal route, cost and how many people would actually be using it.
A deal in the early 1970s with the French government to build an ‘Aerotrain’ between the city and Melbourne Airport was scuttled by 1975.
The Bracks Labor government promised an airport rail link when it was elected in 1999, but walked it back after discovering that “such a link would not be commercially viable for at least 10 years”.
Since 2000, tens of millions of dollars have been spent on studies to test the feasibility of building a train link to the airport, all with conflicting ideas on the best time or best area to build it in.
The federal government promised $5 billion to see it built in 2018, with the then-state minister for public transport Jacinta Allan welcoming the funding.
The latest iteration saw the Airport Rail Link stuck onto the government’s $50 billion Suburban Rail Loop project, the orbital rail line between Cheltenham and Werribee.
It was given the green light in November 2023 after a federal government review, but any hope it would be built on time was short-lived.
Why are we not building it this time?
The latest road bump in the six-decade long journey has come from a sparring match between the Victorian government and Melbourne Airport.
The Allan government prefers a cheaper above-ground station, while Melbourne Airport has long advocated for an underground station.
The airport said it offered up to $7 billion in funding towards an underground airport station and express tracks from Sunshine, which the government rejected.
During a visit to Melbourne on Thursday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese didn’t mince words on the issue.
“The airport should get serious about actually getting things done,” Mr Albanese said.
“I’m familiar with airports — from time to time they think they operate in a way that forgets about their social licence.”
As the two groups throw jabs at each other over the delays, the federal government has stepped in and appointed a referee for the bout in hopes of salvaging the project.
Mediator Neil Scales will put together yet another report on the Airport Rail Link, but federal infrastructure minister Catherine King said it will absolutely be delayed once again.
“It’s delayed because we just haven’t got agreement about above ground, below ground costs, all of that stuff,” she said.
“We’ll work our way through, because it’s an important project. We want to get it done, but can’t give guarantees about timing or any of that until we sort that out.”
In plain terms, it means the Airport Rail Link has been delayed until at least 2033.
The delays have not come without a cost either, with the government spending at least $67 million to delay and then redeploy staff who were meant to be building the train line.
It comes as the government slashes its infrastructure spending in this year’s budget in an effort to curb the state’s growing debt.
Director of the Grattan Institute’s transport and cities program Marion Terrill said it is an expensive time to be committing to more construction.
“There are all these other pressures to do with the state’s debt hitting a very high level — so basically running out of money,” Ms Terrill said.
“The fact that we’ve got so much work already underway, plus the fact that it is a very expensive time to be building, all of these add up to it making sense for the government to slow down and pull back on some of these projects.”
Does Melbourne need a train to the airport?
According to the business case set out by the government in 2022, about 86 per cent of people travelling to Melbourne Airport use private vehicles, despite it being only 22 kilometres from the CBD.
The remaining 14 per cent use bus services, with all of the current transport options expected to strain the road system in decades to come.
The Tullamarine Freeway is forecast to reach capacity in 2036, with travel times and the number of daily trips expected to almost double by 2056.
The Transport Workers’ Union and the Rail Tram and Bus Union in particular were upset with the decision to delay the airport, criticising the airport for having just four bus routes serving over 18,000 workers.
The $79 a day in parking fees that the TWU claims airport workers have to stump up just to get to work has also bolstered support for a train line.
“Airline workers don’t care whether the station is above the ground or underground. They just want a station that gives them the same option as every other airline worker at major airports in Australia,” TWU Branch Secretary Mem Suleyman said.
In its latest 30-year plan, Infrastructure Victoria instead focused on calling for improvements to Victoria’s bus network.
Meanwhile, Infrastructure Australia stated in a 2022 report that the Melbourne Airport Rail should not be treated as a priority, saying more work needed to be done exploring the costs and benefits.
Will it ever get built?
In 2018, Daniel Andrews posted on Facebook that a train line to Melbourne Airport was on its way, with trains to the CBD promised every 10 minutes.
“Airport Rail is now closer to reality than it has ever been. And we’ll be the government that finally gets it done,” Mr Andrews said.
But the struggle to build an airport rail has outlasted even the former premier’s career in politics, and Victoria will have two more state elections before the current promised completion date arrives.
But despite 60 years of failure to make it a reality, the Grattan Institute’s Ms Terrill said the dream of a train to Melbourne Airport is likely here to stay.
“People do respond emotionally to trains, much more than they do that other forms of transport, so this is an idea that probably won’t go away,” she said.
On the bright side, any Victorian who was around when the first sketches of an airport rail link were drawn up, may still one day experience taking a train to the airport — Seniors Card in hand.
ABC News
