Victoria’s transport infrastructure minister, Jacinta Allan, has accused the Morrison government of short-changing the state on infrastructure ahead of a multi-billion package for freight terminals being detailed in Tuesday’s federal budget.
Allan also urged the federal government to justify why it was prioritising a freight terminal in Melbourne’s north – at odds with the Andrews government’s location preference – as part of a $3.1bn injection for Melbourne’s intermodal terminal scheme.
The budget will outline a national $17.9bn infrastructure package for new and existing road and rail projects, including in key marginal seats, to be spent over the next decade.
The Morrison government will back two Victorian freight terminals – one in Melbourne’s north and the other in the western suburbs – in a $3.3bn infrastructure spend for Victoria. The commonwealth said the new freight terminals would take 550 trucks off Melbournes’s roads every day once completed and support jobs growth.
Allan on Monday slammed the $3.1bn spend on two freight terminals, saying two-thirds of the package had already been announced.
“Now we’re having that $2bn re-heated, put into another package,” she said.
“Once again, as we’ve seen on so many occasions under a federal Liberal Nationals governments, we see Victoria being short changed.”
The federal government will commit $1.2bn for a freight terminal at Beveridge, north of Melbourne, and $740m toward a freight terminal at Truganina, west of Melbourne. A further $1.2bn will be committed for surrounding road and rail connections.
The funding is conditional, requiring financial contributions from the Andrews government.
The federal backing of the two locations comes after the Andrews government and commonwealth clashed over the preferred location of a single freight hub.
The state government has favoured Truganina while the federal government prefers the Beveridge site.
Allan on Monday said there was “logic” behind the Andrews government pushing for the western location and called on the federal government to explain why they were backing the Beveridge site.
“The western suburbs of Melbourne is the heart of Australia’s freight and logistics industry,” she said.
“It’s the terminal that’s actually going to have the most impact and getting trucks off the roads.”
Allan said the Andrews government would continue to “push really strongly” to ensure the Truganina site was “first cab off the rank.”
“It’s the site that will not just benefit Victoria, but indeed the nation as a whole.”
Victorian opposition leader, Matthew Guy, accused the state government of “treating the federal government like an ATM”.
The two terminals are part of the Melbourne Intermodal Terminal scheme – unveiled by the federal government in last year’s budget – that aims to increase efficiency of national freight and maximise the Inland Rail to ensure the state’s infrastructure can accommodate it.
The Beveridge location is key for connecting the Melbourne intermodal scheme to the Inland Rail project, which has strong backing from the Nationals. The 1700km freight line will stretch from Melbourne to Brisbane via regional Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.
Infrastructure Partnerships Australia chief executive, Adrian Dwyer, said both freight sites would be critical in the future to ensure the nation could operate a “modern and sophistical” freight and supply chain network.
But the executive director of the McKell Institute, Ryan Batchelor, said if the federal government was backing two sites, the Truganina site was likely to be the one to eventuate.
“I’m not sure where there has been successful delivery of a commonwealth project in Victoria when the state government hasn’t been an active supporter of it,” he said.
The commonwealth’s infrastructure injection for Victoria also includes road upgrades.
The $3.3bn infrastructure package for Victoria is less than the $3.9bn committed for Queensland, but similar to $3.3bn for NSW. Another $2.8bn has been committed for South Australia.
Earlier this month, the Grattan Institute released a report which found there was a “consistent pattern” of successive federal governments spending more money on transport in the election battleground states of New South Wales and Queensland – than in Victoria.
Victoria has just over one quarter – 26% – of Australia’s population, but received just 18% of the federal transport funds over the past 15 years. New South Wales received a third of the transport funding, but has less than a third of the country’s population.
A spokesperson for federal urban infrastructure minister, Paul Fletcher, said the budget would see Victoria’s share of federal government investment “remain at its population share over the 10-year pipeline”.
