Victorians recall with regret the Allan government’s announcement postponing the Airport Rail project. It was in the same 2024 budget that affirmed a $26 billion price tag for the North East Link, after its $10 billion blowout was revealed in December 2023. It doesn’t take much imagination to conclude the one followed directly from the other.
Had someone asked the Parliamentary Budget Office how much could be saved by cancelling the North East Link and downing tools right then, I’m sure they’d have dutifully tallied the billions in hypothetical, avoided construction and operating costs over subsequent decades.
It would not have un-bulldozed 20,000 trees or restored the open wounds sliced through the Yarra and Koonung valleys – but maybe we’d have got airport rail on its original timetable.
When it comes to stopping fiscal and environmental loss from big projects, there really only is one right time, and that’s at the original decision to proceed or not. For these decisions to serve the public interest it’s necessary that they tick all the ‘process’ boxes but as we’ve seen, not sufficiently enough.
There must be a transparent assessment of their merits, including in comparison to good-faith alternatives.
Tony Morton, president, Public Transport Users Association
Letter to The Age, published 4 August 2026