Key issue standing in the way of Baxter actually getting built anytime soon, is that the federal Libs won't release the business case.
Local federal Labor MP held a press conference this morning as to why the Feds were holding out. Fairly easy to assumption to make is the Libs actually have no intention of building it - they just like having it as a carrot for trying to get a Lib member elected to the seat of Dunkley.
Worth remembering as well that the Lib candidate at the last state election let slip that they probably weren't really going to build best Langwarrin anyway, so you can draw your own conclusions.
Colour me surprised... The Federal LNP don't give two s#!ts worth for Victoria.
What astounds me is that so many people in these forums that are so supportive of the all of the investment the state government has poured into the rail network over the past 6 and a half years,
and yet still buy into all of the rhetoric blaming the state government for delays which have been created by the Federal LNP.
You know, people blaming the State for the delay to Baxter (with all the money being promised by the Federal LNP) being
just one example.
——Now — fair warning, I'm going to go on a tangential aside for the next little bit——
Another would be that the last state government botched the business case for the MBRP, which this state government implemented (to their own disadvantage I might add — they did not double-check the business case that the 'pro-business and economics' state government developed, but then
who would think that business case had been botched, seeing as the last state government is apparently 'so good' with economics).
The state gov implemented this in partnership with the Commonwealth. The plan falls to pieces because -what a shock-
the business case was done on the cheap by the last state gov (with an extra dollop of mismanagement y V/Line), and yet this is somehow the fault of the current state government???
Then, when the economy tanks, and the state needs a 'lifeline' thrown to it because of a pandemic + biggest economic collapse since the depression, the Federal LNP somehow can't find the money to finish the most shovel ready project in the whole state, the MBRP.
Despite having control of the Reserve Bank of Australia, and despite repeated calls from the governor of the reserve bank for the Feds to spend big on infrastructure to restart the economy, they refuse to put money into the MBRP because... reasons?????????
They are literally refusing to help the regional communities they claim to represent, and yet this is all the fault of the state government somehow??
Or how about the Federal LNP
refused to help fund the Metro Tunnel as a way of punishing Victoria for booting out the incompetent Bailieu-Napthine government in 2014, and ditching the negatively-rated business case for the East-West Link.
THEN, they have the gall to
dangle $7 billion in front of the state gov, BUT ONLY for the zombie project that never seems to die, the E-W Link. They know that Victoria won't build it, I doubt they even have the money for it. Its just fun to for them to mock Victoria, and it costs them nothing politically. Why does it cost nothing? Because nobody holds the Feds to account for the way they treat Victoria.
What about the
$2.7 billion for NSW, and the piddling $1.1 billion for Victoria to get out of the recession/depression? Why is the state that copped the short end of the COVID-stick,
being essentially 4 months behind the rest of the country, why does it get so much less than NSW? Why so much less funding when Melbourne is still projected to overtake the population of Sydney???
Why aren't people holding the federal government to account for the deliberate traps it is setting up for Victoria to fall into? Does it not occur to people that the Feds deliberately want Victoria to fail because it would suit their political ambition?
Our state's recovery from COVID is just a football the Feds will use to try and smash Victoria with.
— — ok, thats the curtain call on the rant, thanks for listening — —
