The Coalition’s explanation of what a “pause and review” of the Suburban Rail Loop would actually entail is now as murky as the subterranean mud that tunnel boring machines are digging through.
Both major parties are ensnared in an SRL conundrum wrapped in a political riddle – what to do with a major project that is too big to fail and increasingly expensive to build.
The first stage of the under-construction rail line, running underground from Cheltenham to Box Hill, is too far gone to cancel or drastically alter without significant costs.
This is not a comfortable reality for Opposition Leader Jess Wilson, who has made economic management her biggest virtue to voters. She has appointed herself shadow treasurer for this exact reason.
By repeating the mantra that they will pause and review the project with just a morsel of detail, the Coalition has, deliberately or not, allowed some wiggle room in the minds of voters.
Like a political Rorschach test, different groups have found their own meaning.
Haters have clung to the hope that this process will find the underground line is too expensive and must be cancelled immediately.
Others have rationalised that an incoming government will get their feet under the desk and accept that it has to be completed.
In this sweet spot, Wilson’s pause and review policy has allowed her to appear as a hard-nosed budget manager without being tied to any specific changes that could be criticised.
Until this week, the word “pause” was never assumed to be the subjective part of the plan.
Most people had a mental picture of tools being put down, tunnel boring machines unplugged and sites being padlocked while a Coalition government crunched the numbers.
This was not quite right, the Coalition now says. Their strategy, clarified in a statement to The Age, actually does not involve sending workers home or halting digging while the review is under way.
Instead, it is a pause on signing further contracts similar to Premier Ben Carroll’s promise not to sign station-building contracts until a technical review of the project tries to find $1 billion in savings.
The Coalition’s statement says its policy has no technical or budgetary differences to the government’s own review decision.
It would be disingenuous to now blame the media, the public or the Coalition’s political opponents for this supposed misconception.
Speaking at parliament in May, when Wilson was asked on camera if pausing meant stopping work, she nodded and said yes.
When asked for how long, she said, “as long as it takes”. She has not been as unequivocal at other media appearances, but the conversation remains a matter of public record and is partly why the issue hasn’t been pressed further.
On Friday, shadow attorney-general James Newbury was sent out to clarify the issue and said: “Any works that can be paused will immediately be paused.
“We’ve never said we’re going to breach any contract. What we have said is, tools will be down while we review the project,” he added.
Later on Friday, a Liberal spokesperson sought to clarify again that “pausing the project means not committing to further contracts whilst the review about the project’s future is undertaken. Workers will continue to be paid”.
None of this makes a lot of sense when put together. It makes their position even murkier.
When information is incomplete, imagination will fill the gaps.
If the Coalition’s position was altered after May, they should have said so.
They were given plenty of opportunities to explain the nitty-gritty of their policy and must wear the blame if it was misunderstood.
It may well be there was never an incentive to clarify the position until now.
The shades of grey were better than the political realities, which are as follows:
- There are three tunnel boring machines digging their way under Melbourne’s east and south-eastern suburbs, and a fourth is being assembled to launch shortly;
- Stopping them or terminating their work before they reach their next destination will be a logistical challenge rivalled only by the time I learned how to reverse the swing of my laundry door;
- Across launch sites and the sites of six future underground stations, there are gigantic holes in the ground that have been excavated by workers believing that, at some point in the next two years, builders will come in and start building concrete platforms and walls.
The opposition’s public transport spokesman, Matthew Guy, acknowledged this challenge on ABC Radio in August 2025.
“If we’ve got tunnel boring machines which have gone six kilometres underground, then we can hardly fill it back in,” he said.
“The project will then proceed, there’s no doubt about it … No government would have any choice.”
This is an uncomfortable truth for both Wilson and Carroll, who is known to be sceptical about the project but, after becoming leader, ultimately decided to plough on with it and search for $2 billion in savings.
Of these savings, $1 billion has been contested and the other $1 billion is yet to materialise.
There are plenty of counterfactuals to be had about the Suburban Rail Loop, its merits and timing.
The Coalition can argue that proceeding with tunnel boring machines before the election has tied their hands, severely limited their options to manage the budget, and should have been reconsidered after the debt incurred during the pandemic.
Labor can argue that the project was already on the ballot of two elections, including one where the Coalition said they would scrap it, and it will only grow in cost the longer it is delayed.
What cannot be disputed is that machines are digging underground, workers are on site, and any suspension or cancellation will not be easy.
Alongside economic management, another huge part of Wilson’s pitch to voters has been restoring trust in government and being transparent.
Going forward, we need total clarity from both leaders about how they will manage the most expensive project in the state’s history.
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