The North East could be waiting a bit longer for the Victorian government to fulfill its promise for new trains – it says the $100 million committed in the federal budget is not enough to fix the track.
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Premier Daniel Andrew laid out the deal when he visited Wangaratta last month: if his federal counterparts paid to fix the track, he would fund the trains.
But Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan was not celebrating just yet.
“While we don't believe that $100 million will be enough to fix the longstanding issues on the Albury Line, we will sit down with the federal government to discuss this proposal further,” she said.
“Any rail upgrade for the North East needs to be done once and needs to be done right - the last thing that locals need is another patch-up job. As previously indicated, we stand ready to partner with the federal government and provide rolling stock needed, however the track is the federal government's responsibility and they need to fix it properly.”
The federal Infrastructure Department may have admitted $100 million was not enough, when appearing at Senate estimates in February.
Trains lines in regional Victoria could miss out on up to $1 billion of funding included in last week’s state budget, but it is unclear if North East projects are on the chopping block.
Premier Daniel Andrews had announced $1.45 billion in regional rail projects, relying on receiving the full amount owed by the federal government from the sale of the Port of Melbourne, but Tuesday’s budget only allocated $500 million.
The Victorian package included $40 million to start design work on new trains for the North East line and $311.1 million to redesign 39 new VLocity carriages, finally allowing them to run on the North East line.
Mr Andrews lashed out of Prime Minister Malcolm Turn when speaking to media on Wednesday morning because NSW had received its full share of federal money owed.
“He is, after last night’s budget, without any shadow of a doubt, the prime minister of Sydney,” he said.
“We laid out a clear plan for a revival, an improvement and upgrade to every single passenger line across regional Victoria and the prime minister said no.”
The federal government left $460 million for regional Victorian infrastructure unallocated and Mr Andrews did not rule out spending the money to cover some of the train projects.
He did not say which rail lines would miss out.
“This shortfall does present significant problems,” he said.
“Now we’re going to have to go back through each and every one of those projects and carefully consider – because of the fact that Malcolm Turnbull has ripped off Victoria by ratting on his deal with our state – what will be delivered, what won’t be delivered.”
