Victoria is the financially weakest state in the federation. It didn’t have to be this way.
The wheels have begun falling off the infrastructure building political machine that Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan have driven to three election victories.These delays can, in many ways, be tracked back to the infrastructure spending frenzy that Andrews, Allan and Pallas began almost the moment that Labor won office, much of it on transport.The construction was much needed.
The airport opened in 1970 and, thanks to decades of buck-passing and pandering to vested interests by successive state and federal governments, Melbourne has failed to build a rail line – unlike so many other cities of its sprawling size, population and wealth. There are so many big projects — in health, in education, in justice, to name a few areas — that Victoria still needs. And yet thanks to the largesse thrust upon transport projects, the state cannot now afford them.
The state’s debt now stands at $135.9 billion, this week’s budget showed. It will reach $189 billion within four years. The only saving grace is that the government was able to lock in low pandemic-era borrowing rates that mean interest payments as a share of state revenue will peak at 8.8 per cent compared with almost 14 per cent in the final days of the Cain-Kirner Labor government.
Neither can Victoria currently afford a rail line to the airport, and this is a great pity as citizens of a metropolis the size of Melbourne’s should be able to access air services via trains.
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