There is no need for a Daniel Andrews statue. Ben Carroll has a more fitting tribute in mind

July 30, 2026 — 5:00am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

We have reached a truly remarkable situation in Victorian affairs where the government and opposition are each looking for a way out of the state’s largest infrastructure project, the Suburban Rail Loop.

Neither Premier Ben Carroll nor Opposition Leader Jess Wilson have said the first stage of the mammoth project won’t be completed. But each is giving serious consideration to dumping it and writing off a grotesque cost to taxpayers.

The question of what to do is a riddle wrapped in a mystery and ensnared in $14.5 billion worth of government contracts, with contracts worth billions more in the works.

A phone book of major construction and engineering companies are tied to the project until 2035 and beyond. As you read this, two huge tunnel boring machines are in the ground in Burwood, ready to start inching their way to Glen Waverley. The other launch site, at Clarinda, resembles an open-cut mine. Thousands of people are working on the SRL.

Yet, nearly a decade after it was conceived in secret, by a room full of consultants and a Labor government looking for something bright and shiny to wow voters with ahead of a state election – Operation Halo, the clever dicks originally called it – both sides of politics know we would be better off had the idea remained just a glint in James MacKenzie’s eye.

Move over East-West Link, there’s now an even bigger price tag........

© The Age