Nearly $8 billion in promised Commonwealth money has helped “rebuild co-operation” between Victoria and the the Turnbull federal government over the state’s burgeoning infrastructure needs, according to sources close to the talks.
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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has reacted to the call from both the Victorian state Liberals and his own federal MPs in the state and is pushing for progress on Melbourne’s airport rail link before this year’s Victorian election.
Sources close to talks between Mr Turnbull and Premier Daniel Andrews say the Prime Minister wants the feasibility study currently underway into the mammoth infrastructure project completed before the state government goes into caretaker mode ahead of November’s election.
The two men met on Saturday to discuss both airport rail and the Andrews government’s North East Link project after the Commonwealth agreed to pledge $1.7 billion to the road as part of a blitz of $7.8 billion towards roads, rail and other projects in Victoria
The centrepiece of the Coalition’s Victorian infrastructure push is the $5 billion promised to help fund a rail line to Tullamarine, which has been talked about for decades.
The Age has been told the Mr Turnbull is “determined” to see the long-awaited airport rail line built and that he is being received much more “warmly” by the Andrews Labor government after including a modest start on the spending in last month’s federal budget.
The budget also contained $225 million for an upgrade of the Frankston-Baxter line, $132 million to duplicate the Princes Highway between Sale and Traralgon, $50 million for the under-pressure Geelong line and $475 million for the long-awaited rail link to the rapidly growing Monash University area.
The business case for the airport rail line has been scheduled for completion in September and the Prime Minister is understood to be anxious that there be no delay to this planning work so that “key decisions” on the project can be made before caretaker mode kicks in about a month later.
In the wake of the meeting between the Premier and the Prime Minister, Mr Andrews said that airport rail had been high on the agenda, as well as the Northeast Link and “Rowville light rail”, a reference to the Monash link.
The Premier said the meeting, before both leaders attended the Dreamtime game at the MCG, had been “very, very productive” and pledged that there would be more face-to-face talks soon.
