In August, the Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) projected the cost of building the Victorian Labor Government’s Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) had doubled to $125 billion, with another $75 billion projected for operating expenses:
Initial projections when the project was announced by the state government in 2018 said it would cost $50 billion to build the loop running from Cheltenham to Werribee.
But the forecasts in the budget office’s latest report eclipse those numbers without even accounting for the final stage of the loop, which would link Werribee and Melbourne Airport…
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Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
