Financial estimates were doctored and a senior public servant threatened with the sack to ensure the proposed Melbourne Airport Rail Link ran through Sunshine instead of a more direct route to the city, the Big Build royal commission has been told.
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commission → doctor → city
The allegations challenge the integrity of the business case for Premier Ben Carroll’s priority project, call into question a $12 billion joint funding commitment by the state and federal governments, and plunge the Big Build into fresh scandal a month before the state election.
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allegations → challenge → election
A confidential submission to the royal commission by a planning expert who advised on the airport rail link reveals that a secret working group was established in late 2017 or early 2018 at the direction of then-public transport minister Jacinta Allan to allegedly bake in the case for the Sunshine route.
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group → advise → route
It says the small group, which included public servants within the Transport Department and outside consultants, was told to not discuss its work with any of their colleagues, including direct reports, or diarise their meetings.
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which → say → meetings
All instructions were given verbally.
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instructions → give → ?
The group’s brief, according to the submission, was to study four shortlisted routes for the Melbourne Airport Rail Link (MARL) and build evidence supporting the state government’s politically favoured outcome – that the new train line, if ever built, would have to go through Sunshine.
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line → accord → Sunshine
“The task was to produce a document, or set of documents, prior to the 2018 election so that after that election there would be no further consideration of any alternative routes for the MARL other than through Sunshine,” the submission reads.
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submission → produce → Sunshine
Allan denies the allegations and is expected to be called as a witness before the commission.
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Allan → deny → commission
The submission is one of four to the royal commission raising concerns about the integrity of the current MARL project.
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submission → raise → project
All were provided to this masthead by their respective authors.
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All → provide → authors
The most serious allegation raised by the planning expert is that, to make an iron-clad case for Sunshine, the estimated cost of a more direct route through Maribyrnong was intentionally inflated by exaggerating the amount of tunnelling required.
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cost → raise → tunnelling
The Maribyrnong route would have run beneath Highpoint shopping centre and opened up disused defence land for residential development.
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route → run → development
An earlier 2012 study, commissioned by the then Liberal state government, top-scored Maribyrnong, known at the time as the “direct tunnel” option, out of 22 possible routes, with Sunshine ranked a close second.
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Sunshine → commission → routes
The allegation that costings were deliberately inflated to rule Maribyrnong out of contention is contained in a separate, contemporaneous file note made by a solicitor when the planning expert first sought legal advice about blowing the whistle.
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expert → inflate → whistle
The note, dated August 23, 2018, and seen by The Age, reads:
“Untenable.
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note → date → Age
Serious matters ignored, not acted upon.
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matters → ignore → ?
“4 options – one particular route better but more expensive (doctored to make it unviable).”
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it → doctor → ?
The solicitor who wrote the file note confirmed its authenticity.
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who → write → authenticity
The planning expert, who spoke to this masthead on the condition of anonymity, decided against making a disclosure to the Victorian Ombudsman or IBAC due to fears of personal and professional recriminations.
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who → speak → recriminations
They subsequently quit the department, leaving the information buried for eight years.
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They → quit → years
“This is fraud on a billion-dollar scale,” they said.
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they → say → scale
The planning expert, working with trusted former colleagues experienced in rail engineering and major project costing, has calculated that an unnecessary 3.5 kilometres of tunnelling was included along the proposed Maribyrnong route to add between $3.8 billion and $4.6 billion to the estimated cost.
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kilometres → work → cost
A price tag of $20 billion to $25 billion for Maribyrnong – double the estimated $8 billion to $13 billion cost of the Sunshine route – was included in a strategic appraisal of the airport rail link published by Transport for Victoria in July 2018 and built into the 2021 business case for the project.
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tag → estimate → project
A truer, average cost estimate of the Maribyrnong route, according to detailed calculations provided to this masthead by the group of experts, is $16.5 billion in 2018 dollars.
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estimate → accord → dollars
Maribyrnong was the federal government’s preferred route when then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull came to Melbourne in April 2018 to announce $5 billion in funding towards the project.
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Turnbull → prefer → project
Then-premier Daniel Andrews, who did not appear at the funding announcement alongside Turnbull, was blindsided by the move.
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who → appear → move
At the time, he was more focused on his government’s plans to unveil the Suburban Rail Loop, a project being developed in secret, as a vote-grabbing election promise.
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he → unveil → promise
The Victorian government formally endorsed the Sunshine route for the airport rail link in August 2018 and the federal government followed suit three months later.
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government → endorse → August
The comparative cost of the Maribyrnong route was a critical factor in tipping the scales towards Sunshine in the published assessment.
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cost → tip → assessment
According to the Transport for Victoria analysis, Maribyrnong was the top-scoring route for the benefits it would bring to travellers using the line, Victorian businesses and the economic development of Melbourne’s inner north-west.
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it → accord → west
Due to its prohibitive cost, it was ranked last for deliverability.
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it → rank → deliverability
When the planning expert saw the assessment, he challenged an executive working in the department.
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he → see → department
“I just said to him, “How could you produce documents like this, and think this is OK?” the planning expert told this masthead.
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expert → say → masthead
“He said to me, ‘The minister said to me that either these documents say Sunshine or I’ll sack you.
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I → say → you
So they say Sunshine.’”
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they → say → Sunshine
Allan, who is retiring from politics after losing the Labor leadership to Carroll in July this year, was the minister for public transport and major projects at the time the assessment was done.
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assessment → retire → time
“The allegations made are incorrect,” a spokesman for the former premier said.
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spokesman → make → premier
“Ms Allan will co-
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Allan → co → ?
She will answer whatever questions the royal commission has for her about these allegations, but it is not appropriate to pre-empt the royal commission’s work.”
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it → answer → work
A colleague of Allan, who was unauthorised to publicly discuss the matter, said the former premier was furious at the suggestion she would coerce public servants to support a particular outcome.
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she → discuss → outcome
…and 31 more, not listed.
The Aporia
