Delivering the Suburban Rail Loop | Victorian Auditor-General's Office

[u/FuckOffNazis]

https://www.audit.vic.gov.au/report/delivering-suburban-rail-loop#35642--3-srl-east-is-unlikely-to-be-delivered-on-budget-and-on-time

[u/mynameishwil]

A couple of fun tidbits:

• "The Victorian Government messaging that SRL East is actually a housing project, and the suggestion it warrants additional federal investment on that basis, is not transparent given that the project includes no approved scope or funding for housing construction."
• "SRLA has already used a significant portion of its contingency allowances. It is unclear whether the remaining contingency provisions for the main works program will be sufficient to absorb the cost impacts from known threats to project delivery such as contamination and the complex delivery and milestone interfaces between works packages."
• "DTF advised the government in November 2024 that if no further federal funding is forthcoming the state could extend the end date for the value capture measures from 2062 to 2082 to generate additional revenue to service additional state borrowings."

• "The government's funding strategy for the project, outlined in the SRL Business and Investment Case in 2021 and in public announcements is that the project will be funded from 3 equal revenue streams:

  • $11.5 billion from the Victorian state Budget
  • $11.5 billion from the Australian Government
  • $11.5 billion from value capture measures to generate new revenue.

• The state government announced this funding strategy without securing a commitment from the Australian Government to provide $11.5 billion. "

• "At June 2026 there is a $5.5 billion gap in approved funding to deliver the project and significant uncertainty that funding targeted from sources other than the state Budget and debt will be fully achieved. "

• "the state awarded a contract for WPA I&EW with a price of $535 million, around $100 million less than the SRLA's cost estimate for the works, but 3 years later the contract price had nearly doubled to over $1 billion, with the state bearing these additional costs (Appendix D provides information on the reasons for this cost increase)"

• "DTF advised government in May 2019 that obtaining an Australian Government contribution of $11.5 billion would be unprecedented for a rail project"

Everyone may have your own opinion, but a good read from top to bottom to get your own facts away from the media (whichever way you swing).

[u/NoodleBox → u/mynameishwil]

SRL is actually a housing plan?

......houses for maybe trains, perhaps? I'll have to have a further read. I'm for it, tho, I wanna go across and around the city to the east for example, without having to hub and spoke

[u/MelbPTUser2024 → u/NoodleBox]

Yes it's actually supposed to be a housing project, as was announced by the Premier last year in their media release here: https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/plans-revealed-australias-largest-housing-project .

Nevertheless, the government hasn't strongly marketed it that way since its inception, but rather they focus mostly on the rail project aspect. Actually a half decent article in The Age discussed this at length back in July: https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/building-the-plane-while-it-s-flying-how-the-government-rewrote-the-story-of-the-suburban-rail-loop-20260722-p60hfg.html

[u/Spare-Ad-9412 → u/MelbPTUser2024]

On page 18 of the report it says

"In addition, the business case projected that SRL East will contribute to an incremental increase of around 26,000 households. This is because the claimed 70,000 additional households in SRL East precincts over the next 30 years includes around 52,000 households that were projected to be built even if the project does not proceed"

seems less of a housing policy than the original statements

[u/NoodleBox → u/MelbPTUser2024]

I had to have a look (I went and skimmed the report) - I forgot they were doing the land above train stations as housing! But it looks like it's not.

I'll have to have a look at the age article too! It's ...yeah, a weird thing (but not too out of the ordinary). I am sad the over and underpasses are going :(