Geelong Fast Rail axed in federal infrastructure review

THE Geelong Fast Rail project has chugged to a final stop, with the federal government cancelling the project in its response to a review of the Infrastructure Investment Program.

The $4 billion project was among 12 Victorian projects to be dropped as part of the government’s response, released today (Thursday, November 16).

Work on Geelong Fail Rail has been on pause for some time, with the Victorian government’s 2023-24 budget providing no money towards the project or completion date.

City of Greater Geelong mayor Trent Sullivan said the decision to cancel Geelong Fast Rail was “a bitter blow for the people of Geelong and the region”.

“Having promised our community a world-class rail system, the Federal Government has now abandoned those promises.

“As one of the fastest growing regions in Australia, Geelong desperately needs public transport investment. Our rail service is under extreme pressure and a high-speed rail is long overdue. Commuters are tired of disrupted timetables, long journeys and overcrowding.

“Geelong people have waited long enough and the need for this service is urgent.

“The City of Greater Geelong is working hard to successfully attract new businesses and investment to the region to grow employment.

“A high-speed rail project would create more jobs for the region during the construction of the line. It would create certainty for local businesses, attract even more people to live in our regional city and encourage development in surrounding areas by bringing places such as Winchelsea and Colac within easy reach of Melbourne.

“The City of Greater Geelong has been a leader in pushing for fast rail over many years and developed a Fast Rail strategy document that seeks to fast-track rail upgrades.

“We will now ramp up our fight for our transport funding from the State Government.”

After years of negotation and promises, then-prime minister Scott Morrison and then-premier Daniel Andrews jointly announced in November 2020 their governments would each put $2 billion towards Stage 1 of Geelong Fast Rail.

The eventual travel time would be reduced to about 50 minutes – a reduction of up to 15 minutes on the present journey and considerably higher than the 32-minute journey touted by the then-Coalition federal government when it revealed a $2 billion budget commitment in 2019.

Victorian Transport Infrastructure Minister Danny Pearson today described Geelong Fast Rail as a thought bubble.

“That really didn’t stack up,” he told reporters at state parliament.

Other projects dumped as part of the review include upgrades of the Western, Calder, Mornington Peninsula freeways, the Frankston to Baxter Rail upgrade and a business case into an intermodal terminal for inland rail in Melbourne.

Victoria will push for all of the money previously allocated to those projects to stay in the state, Mr Pearson said.

Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King, who released the response today, said more than 400 individual ongoing projects in the Infrastructure Investment Program are expected be completed or substantially developed over the next 10 years.

“The independent strategic review found that the Infrastructure Investment Program inherited from the former Coalition Government was undeliverable.

“As part of responding to the findings of the review, the Government has made necessary decisions to no longer provide funding at this time to some projects.

“This includes projects that were not realistically going to be delivered with the funding available, have made little to no progress over a significant amount of time, and projects that do not align with Commonwealth or state and territory priorities.”

 – WITH AAP