A solution for the Melbourne Airport Rail standoff could be delivered within weeks despite the Victorian government and airport owners not meeting with mediators in the same room to hash out their differences over the $13 billion project.
Victorian Transport Infrastructure Minister Danny Pearson on Tuesday declared there was no guarantee a compromise would be reached before the 2026 election, even though the mediator’s report is imminent.
Former Queensland transport department director-general Neil Scales, who was in April appointed by the federal government to mediate the dispute, has met with the airport once and met separately with Victorian government officials.
While the parties have not been in a room together to hash out a solution, Scales’ final report will be delivered within weeks, Commonwealth transport bureaucrats told a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday.
The report, which is expected to include “options on the ways forward with the project”, would then be provided to federal Transport Minister Catherine King, along with her department’s advice.
“The question is whether it’s affordable, and if so, at what price and at what price does an underground option become prohibitively expensive? That’s the question that everyone’s been grappling with,” department secretary Jim Betts told the estimates hearing.
The state budget this month revealed the rail project would be delayed at least four yearsuntil 2033 because of the government’s dispute with the airport, which wants the new station to be built underground.
The Allan government argues an underground station would cost at least $1 billion more, take almost two years longer to deliver and wouldn’t benefit the surrounding businesses the way an above-ground station would.
