The Turnbull government's vision for Melbourne would see large "employment hubs" developed away from its congested CBD and connected by a new generation of rail lines.
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But Cities Minister Paul Fletcher has warned the federal government’s dream of new kinds of “heavy rail” networks moving large numbers of workers to new kinds of jobs will not come cheap.
Mr Fletcher says areas such as Clayton and Melbourne Airport are good examples of employment centres that support many thousands of jobs but could really take off if they were connected by train lines.
Sunshine, in the city’s west, is also making a pitch to become Melbourne’s latest rail-powered growth precinct with local authorities there hoping it could become a major rail hub on the proposed line between the city and the airport.
Mr Fletcher told The Age that both he and the Prime Minister were thinking of jobs and economic growth when they were planning their big infrastructure spending announcements of up to $5 billion for airport rail and $500 million for a line to Monash University in Clayton.
“He [Mr Turnbull] is a strong believer in the role of public transport and heavy rail in our cities being efficient productive and liveable,” Mr Fletcher said.
“Heavy rail in particular, can move large numbers of people quickly and if you look at the great cities of the world, all of them have metro-style rail systems.”
The minister said the Turnbull government was enthusiastically supporting urban rail building around the nation, citing Gold Coast Light Rail, Flinders Link in Adelaide, Sydney Metro, the massive MetroNet project in Perth and the commitment of up to $5 billion for Melbourne Airport rail.
“Melbourne Airport is a jobs hub,” Mr Fletcher said.
“It has a lot of growth capacity, it doesn’t have a curfew and both domestic and international air travel is growing and there’s no real constraint on that.
“It is a very important employment hub and there’s every likelihood that’s only going to increase.
"Rail connectivity can be a very powerful factor in attracting businesses because they know that employees will find it easy to get to work.
“So that was part of our thinking behind Melbourne Airport rail.”
Both the Prime Minister and his Cities Minister have been heavily influenced by the success of Macquarie Park in Sydney’s north which has doubled its economic output, to more than $9 billion a year, since it got a rail link in 2009 and is now Sydney’s second largest market for office space.
“Our thinking on Monash was very much driven by the same factors, Monash is the second biggest employment hub outside the CBD and again if we can get that rail connectivity, the experience of Macquarie Park in Sydney and the experience around the world suggests that it would just boost that area, attract additional employers and additional jobs,” Mr Fletcher said.
The minister said the latest technological advances allowed modern networks to run trains in numbers that would have been impossible decades ago when much of the nation’s suburban rail networks were designed.
Railway lines are expensive to build, the minister said, but both he and Mr Turnbull believe that the advantages of trains make the high pricetags worthwhile.
“The great challenge of heavy rail is that it’s very, very expensive from a capital point of view but in the highest density parts of your city, it has some advantages that no other form of transport can have,” Mr Fletcher said.
“Universities, hospital and the type of businesses and institutions they attract around them are becoming more important jobs hubs than they were 20 or 30 years ago,
