Tuesday, 1 April 2025

Questions without notice and ministers statements

Suburban Rail Loop

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (12:06): (869) My question is to the Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop. Minister, Infrastructure Australia completely obliterated your value capture plans for the Suburban Rail Loop, stating:

… any value capture revenues required after the project’s delivery may need to substantially exceed $11.5 billion in nominal terms to offset the upfront cost in real terms.

Infrastructure Australia told Senate estimates last week they would need to see the split of value capture mechanisms when they come online and when revenue from value capture taxes will be received before considering additional funding. When will you be publicly releasing this information?

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (12:06): Thank you, Mr Mulholland, for that question. The report that you have referred to from Infrastructure Australia starts with a premise that you may well find a little inconvenient. What I am going to do, for the purpose of context, is take you to the point in that report that says – it is the first sentence, so let us just go there –

David Davis: On a point of order, President, the minister is asked questions here. She is not able to go and answer a question of her own choosing; she actually has to answer the question that was asked.

The PRESIDENT: It has only been 23 seconds, and the minister is being relevant to the particular report.

Harriet SHING: Thanks, Mr Mulholland. What a surprise that you do not actually want to hear anything good about this particular project, which will reshape the city, and in particular the very first sentence of Infrastructure Australia’s report, which says:

We recommend that the Australian Government allocates its $2.2 billion funding commitment towards tangible elements of the Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) East project’s scope, such as land acquisition and/or land development that supports additional housing opportunities, or road upgrades to improve efficiency and safety of traffic, public transport and active transport movements as enabling works around station precincts.

The report from Infrastructure Australia, which also states very clearly that the Suburban Rail Loop is an infrastructure priority list project – it is on Infrastructure Australia’s priority list – goes on to say that additional work is required, which is in fact well understandable within a project of this magnitude, because this is long-term work. This is about a city-shaping project. Infrastructure Australia again – let us go to the evaluation summary – says, amongst other things:

SRL East presents a significant opportunity to directly improve quality of life for residents in the middle and outer suburbs of Melbourne’s east by increasing transport choice –

Evan Mulholland: On a point of order on relevance, President, I asked when the minister would publicly be releasing information Infrastructure Australia has been asking for, and she is yet to get to that question.

The PRESIDENT: I call the minister to the question.

Georgie Crozier interjected.

Harriet SHING: It is an important question, Ms Crozier, and it is a question which is anchored in the Infrastructure Australia report. Let us just go back to what the report says, further to the first sentence, which recommends the release of that $2.2 billion. It says:

SRL East presents a significant opportunity to directly improve quality of life for residents in the middle and outer suburbs of Melbourne’s east by increasing transport choice, connecting major employment, health, education and retail areas, and facilitating new housing. It aims to address a long-recognised challenge of Melbourne’s monocentric urban sprawl and radial transport system by supporting the distribution and growth of housing, employment and other land uses in Melbourne’s middle and outer suburbs.

What I would say to you, Mr Mulholland –

Evan Mulholland: When?

Harriet SHING: We will have trains running on the network in 2035. You asked me when. We have got tunnel boring happening from next year, Mr Mulholland, when you ask ‘When?’

Evan Mulholland: On a point of order, President, on relevance, I asked when the minister will publicly be releasing the information Infrastructure Australia has been asking for.

The PRESIDENT: I will call the minister to the question.

Harriet SHING: I will continue, Mr Mulholland – as I have done since taking on the privilege of this portfolio in December last year – to engage with Infrastructure Australia on this project, which it has identified as a priority project. We will continue to work on funding and finance strategies and on value capture, as has occurred in other jurisdictions, Mr Mulholland. This is hard work. It is important work, and it is work that will go on.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (12:10): On a supplementary, Catherine King, the minister for transport infrastructure, and several federal government ministers say they still need more information from the Victorian government before any further federal funding is committed. Freedom-of-information documents have revealed that Infrastructure Australia wrote to the SRLA as recently as May 2024, still seeking information it first asked for in September 2022. Given your government has refused to provide this information for over 2½ years, how can Victorians trust you to release it now?

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for the Suburban Rail Loop, Minister for Housing and Building, Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts) (12:11): Thanks, Mr Mulholland. You are referring to something from 2024. Let us go to the Infrastructure Australia report, which did recommend the release of that $2.2 billion amount, and it did so on the basis that the Suburban Rail Loop is an important part of addressing the sorts of challenges which are outlined in Plan Melbourne. If all of a sudden you disagree with the matters set out in Plan Melbourne, if you are proposing that there is no solution to Plan Melbourne and to inner-ring development, then I am looking forward to seeing your offering in the next 12 months.

Infrastructure minister Catherine King has been very clear about the SRL having some really terrific benefits. It also includes references to building, in terms of what she said. The federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers, the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the ongoing discussions with the Commonwealth are all about delivering this benefit. We are going to continue to do it. Peter Dutton today has not said he is going to scrap it; he is just going to take $500 million out of an overall project for transport infrastructure.

Evan Mulholland: On relevance, I asked the minister how Victorians can trust her to release the information given that the SRLA have not released that information for about 2½ years.

The PRESIDENT: There is no point of order.