In late 2023, it was revealed that the former head of the Victorian transport department (i.e., from 2015 to 2018), Richard Bolt, told Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass that he was excluded from the early stages of the Suburban Rail Loop’s (SRL) development and cautioned that it would be a waste of public funds given that an “improved bus service” would deliver similar benefits at much lower cost.
“The extraordinary secrecy applied to this project was not only a breach of convention and public trust, it also comes at a high cost to public value, and specifically the best, optimal use of state finances”, Bolt said.
“A project of this scale and complexity necessarily competes with many other claims on public funds – in all portfolios, not only transport. That the opportunity costs of the SRL were not able to be tested by … [the Department of Treasury and Finance] creates a high risk that better uses of funds have been crowded out”.
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