{"id":40244,"date":"2024-05-10T16:22:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T06:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=40244"},"modified":"2024-05-10T16:22:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T06:22:06","slug":"catherine-king-reiterates-5bn-pledge-for-melbourne-airport-rail-link","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=40244","title":{"rendered":"Catherine King reiterates $5bn pledge for Melbourne airport rail link"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Federal Labor Infrastructure Minister Catherine King has backed the Melbourne Airport rail link<\/a> as an \u201cimportant project\u201d and renewed the government\u2019s $5bn commitment to help fund its construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the midst of a stand-off between the Allan Government <\/a>and Melbourne Airport that has stalled the link for at least four years, Ms King moved to renew the Albanese Government\u2019s <\/p>\n\n\n\n

support while acknowledging the dispute was a major hurdle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMelbourne Airport Rail Link remains an important project for Victoria which is why the Albanese Labor Government retained $5bn for its construction in the recent Review of the Infrastructure Investment Program,\u201d Ms King said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will continue to work with the Victorian Government <\/a>on the planning for this project, but the reality is that until an agreement is reached with Melbourne Airport on where the station will be located, the project cannot commence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe recognise the enormous construction pipeline of significant projects already underway in Victoria and want to support the Victorian Government in ensuring that Victorians get the infrastructure they need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> State debt interest $26m a day<\/a> | Rail Loop gets the green light, airport link on hold<\/a> | Creature of union reform blows the bank<\/a> | Atop debt mountain, Pallas barely tinkers<\/a> |<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delivering his tenth budget on Tuesday, Mr Pallas <\/a>all but axed the link to Melbourne Airport and lashed the private operators as nothing more than a \u201cbig car park operator\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course, were the airport operator to see reason and maybe become a good corporate citizen instead of being a big car park operator then perhaps we might be able to move it forward,\u201d Mr Pallas said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Pallas doubled down on his criticism of the airp[ort on Wednesday, warning the private operators that unless they fast-tracked building a third runway, the government might look at investing in more transport to rival Avalon Airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about time Melbourne Airport appreciated that they should get on and deliver their third runway. They\u2019ve got very substantial challenges that they have to confront in terms of community concerns about that third runway,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m getting increasingly concerned about whether or not as a state, we shouldn\u2019t be putting an each way bet around Avalon, and starting to think about what they can do in terms of provisioning for our transport needs going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we are saying is either they sort out this problem and they make it a priority to sort it out, or the government is going to have to look at better provisioning for airport passenger transport than what is available from Melbourne Airport. Because at the moment it\u2019s all road transport, and it\u2019s carparks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wake of the treasurer\u2019s budget comments, Melbourne Airport reiterated its support for the project and pointed to its involvement in a consortium willing to pump $7bn into the rail line. The standoff centres around the airport wanting the station to be underground and the government insisting on a cheaper, above ground design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Melbourne Airport CEO Lyell Strambi has slammed Mr Pallas\u2019s comments as \u201cabsolute nonsense\u201d saying the airport had always been \u201cenormously supportive of rail\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe problem with their \u2018above ground\u2019 solution is that it\u2019s an obstruction to the future development of the airport which is always a worry, allowing that to happen,\u201d said Mr Strambi who is now on the board of Brisbane Airport Corporation and Aurizon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt would come into the airport so high, I think it was level 5 or 6 of the car park, and to get to that level it doesn\u2019t pop up at the last minute, it sweeps in over the last 2km over the entire precinct so you\u2019ve got this huge monolith that will forever be in the way of any development in and around that airport. It not only affects the road it also affects the ability to develop your terminals so it\u2019s not a great solution.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said there was never a disagreement over the need for rail and the suggestion the airport was \u201cjust there to protect car park revenues\u201d was nonsense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCarpark revenues will continue to be strong because a lot of people want to drive to the airport and the existence of rail won\u2019t change that,\u201d said Mr Strambi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe airport did engage with the state government for at least 12 to 18 months on their solution trying to find ways to make that work so it\u2019s not through any lack of effort to deliver rail.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He questioned whether the state government was simply making excuses for their lack of ability to fund the project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf the airport rolled over all of a sudden and said \u2018we will take this above ground solution\u2019 I suspect the government would have heart palpitations around how they might even fund that. It\u2019s a very convenient excuse,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo say the airport has been working against it is absolute nonsense.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The longer it took for the rail link to be built, the more difficult it would become, Mr Strambi said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not impossible, just harder all the way along that line because of natural development,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe best time to build that rail is today because it gets harder and more complex as things develop and change around it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Australian Newspaper<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Federal Labor Infrastructure Minister Catherine King has backed the Melbourne Airport rail link as an \u201cimportant project\u201d and renewed the government\u2019s $5bn commitment to help fund its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":40245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,999,4450,163],"tags":[472,5982,9030,993,7529,7,8],"class_list":["post-40244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-australia-politics","category-australian-airports","category-rail-industry-news-australia-new-zealand","tag-australian","tag-canberra","tag-catherine-king","tag-melbourne","tag-melbourne-airport","tag-transport","tag-victoria"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40246,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40244\/revisions\/40246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}