Breaking: Fares secretly hiked to fund Suburban Rail Loop, Auditor-General finds

The Victorian government secretly increased public transport fares to help finance the Suburban Rail Loop, according to a recent audit by the state's Auditor-General Office. Premier Ben Carroll announced $2 billion in savings on the $30 billion infrastructure project during a press conference. However, the government never disclosed that a new levy on public transport fares would be introduced to fill the funding gap.

This 1% increase went unnoticed in the annual ticket cost inflation. The government aims to secure one-third of the project's cost through taxes and charges, known as value capture, with about $4.8 billion in net present value (NPV) terms expected by 2062. The levy, approved in August 2021 when Carroll was the public transport minister, will be the project's largest source of value capture revenue.

The government also plans to save $1 billion by removing non-essential features from the SRL East leg of the project, reducing the estimated investment from $34.5 billion to around $32 billion. However, the project has faced significant delays, with the procurement process taking an extra year and early works packages finishing six months late.

These issues suggest the SRL East is more likely to exceed its disclosed cost. Victoria hopes to secure a third of the project's cost from the federal government, which has already committed $6 billion.