Leaked confidential government reports prove what the Liberal Nationals have been saying for almost a year.
Labor’s Transport Infrastructure Minister, Jacinta Allan’s personal meddling in the design of the Town Hall and State Library stations has caused the Cross Yarra Partnership Consortium to demand an additional $3.3 billion to complete the Metro Tunnel Project.
Minister Allan’s personal design flourishes at the State Library and Town Hall stations were calculated to together increase their cost by 98 per cent from $907 million to $1.8 billion, an increase of $893 million; while the budget for the remaining stations – Arden, Parkville and Domain – increased by 58 per cent from $828 million to $1.3 billion.
It is reported in the Age that “the state government agreed in June to chip in more than $1 billion under an in-principle agreement struck with the consortium.”
An eye-watering price to indulge the amateur architectural ambitions of Minister Allan.
Comments attributable to Shadow Minister for Transport Infrastructure, David Davis:
“Minister Allan appears to have missed her calling. If she wants to be an architect, she should study to be one.
“Instead she has already wasted over $1 billion of Victorian taxpayers’ money on unnecessary and personally indulgent design changes to Metro Tunnel stations.
“The scale of Minister Allan’s indulgence in personally redesigning the Metro Tunnel Stations, at huge public expense, is sickening and something about which Victorians will be rightfully enraged.
“Victorian taxpayers are not the Medici Bank and Minister Allan is no Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo.”
