Article: $20mil for new rail links

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From the Herald Sun click here!

$20mil for new rail links

$20mil for new rail links

    Peter Rolfe and James Campbell
    From: Sunday Herald Sun
    April 24, 2011 12:00AM

NEW train lines to Melbourne and Avalon airports, Doncaster and Rowville will be kick-started by the Baillieu Government in next month's state Budget.

Treasury chiefs are believed to have put aside more than $20 million for preliminary work on a major expansion of Victoria's rail network this year, with significant extra funding to be announced in the next four years.

Hoping to drive a public transport revolution, the Government has committed to major funding packages to get the Avalon, Doncaster and Melbourne Airport projects up and running as soon as possible.

The Avalon link has been earmarked as a "top-priority project" with planning already started.

A government source said it was likely to be the first built, with work to start as early as this year.

"We are committed to start building it this term," the source said.

High-ranking government insiders have told the Sunday Herald Sun the Coalition intends to fulfil a series of pre-election pledges to shake up the state's rail infrastructure, despite a period of economic uncertainty.

"The work is being done to make sure these things happen," a source said. "They're very significant projects and work will begin on them in our first year."

Funding to design construction of a Doncaster line is expected in the Budget, as well as about $6.5 million to fund a study of a possible Melbourne Airport rail link.

The Melbourne Airport Rail Study will start in June and be completed by the end of next year. The Government is also expected to announce a feasibility study into a rail link to Rowville in Melbourne's southeast via Monash University, though its short-term construction is considered less likely than the other three train lines.

Each of the projects will be overseen by the Victorian Public Transport Development Authority - an independent body expected to start operating in July to manage the state's trams, buses and trains.

The Government will fund the projects, despite facing an uphill battle balancing the books and paying for a raft of policies announced in the lead-up to last year's state election.

Treasurer Kim Wells is expected to announce cost-cutting measures in his first Budget, to be handed down on May 3.

Funds rumoured to be in the gun include electorate allowances given to each of the state's MPs to run their local offices, public sector spending and money wasted on government conferences and websites.

Premier Ted Baillieu has previously promised a minimum annual state Budget surplus of $100 million.

The Property Council of Australia has called for land tax to be slashed from 2.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent on investment properties and commercial stamp duty be cut from more than 5 per cent to 4 per cent.