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TED Baillieu's controversial 2010 election vow to build a $250 million rail link to Lindsay Fox's Avalon airport was the top priority on a Fox group wish list.
An Avalon rail link topped a list of five projects submitted by airport management to senior Liberal MP Matthew Guy in September 2010, days after Mr Guy visited the airport with Liberal candidates for local state seats.
The Saturday Age has confirmed that the Liberals requested the list. In November 2010, Mr Baillieu pledged to build the rail link.
The Coalition has since also promised to install a new fuel line from Geelong to the airport - the second project on the Fox list.
But despite Mr Baillieu's bold promise to start work on the rail link in his first term, the project appears to be in trouble, with infrastructure experts asking why Victoria would build a train line to a little-used airport before one to Tullamarine, or to suburbs in need of public transport.
Last week, federal advisory agency Infrastructure Australia rejected Victoria's request to finance a study into the Avalon link. ''It doesn't seem to have a strategic value at all,'' said Professor Peter Newman of Curtin University, who is an Infrastructure Australia board member with Sir Rod Eddington.
''To link that airport before you've done the major airport [Tullamarine], come on what's the point of that? Avalon is an example of politics over-riding rational economic decision making.''
The Coalition has promised $50 million towards the project. It says the remainder would have to come from the federal government and the Fox family.
Since the state election, Mr Fox has taken an active part in Liberal party fund-raising, including as guest speaker in June at a $250-a head lunch organised by the Barwon Region Professionals Branch of the party. Historically, the Fox family has given financial support to both the Liberal and Labor parties.
The Coalition's unconditional promise to starting building the Avalon link in its first term was in contrast to studies promised for other rail extensions to Doncaster, Rowville and Tullamarine airport.
Located 50 kms from the Melbourne CBD and 10 kms from Geelong, Avalon is destined to become Melbourne's second international airport, sometime.
For the moment, however, demand for transport to the Avalon is weak following the loss of Tiger airlines last year, and more recently Sharp airlines, which had operated flights to Portland.
Avalon boasts just five Jetstar flights in and out daily with an average of 1500 passengers passing through each day. By comparison, almost 30 million passengers use Tullamarine yearly, a figure expected to rise to 40 million by the end of the decade.
However leading Geelong businessman Frank Costa told The Saturday Age the Avalon rail link would be ''a piece of cake'' compared to doing a rail line to Tullamarine.
The Avalon link was an vote winner in 2010. Liberal contender Andrew Katos narrowly defeated Labor incumbent Michael Crutchfield in South Barwon, helping to deliver an unexpected one-seat victory over John Brumby's ALP.
One senior figure within the Fox group told The Saturday Age he believed that boosting Andrew Katos' bid for South Barwon was probably a key factor in the Liberal support for the rail link.
But the Coalition promise bemused many in Melbourne, especially given the repeated failure of governments to deliver on plans for rail links to Tullamarine.
In February, Premier Baillieu said: ''We believe the long-term future of Avalon is a second international airport and our planning has been about long-term planning. If we've learnt anything about airport planning and construction in the last 20 or 30 years, it's the long-term decisions that count.''
After writing to the Liberals in September 2010, Avalon Airport chief Justin Giddings also submitted the Fox wish list to the ALP. He wrote: ''Recently I was requested (by the Liberals) to provide a list of projects which will further assist Avalon Airport's growth. For fairness I now write to you with similar requests.''
But having recently finalised a $38 billion transport plan, Labor could not justify a project as ambitious and costly as a dedicated rail link.
Mr Giddings told The Saturday Age that he expected the project to win approval for capital funding from Canberra next year to allow work to start before the 2014 election.
He said that with long-term planning, including a link to Avalon, Melbourne could avoid the problems that Sydney has faced with providing airport facilities.
But Professor Newman said it did not make sense to either finance or build the Avalon link ahead of much needed rail projects including the multi-billion Metro tunnel or a rail line to Doncaster.
Mr Giddings said he was in discussions with the state government about the possibility of less expensive options, including a monorail or light rail from a new Avalon station on the Melbourne-Geelong line. He said the cost of such options could be cut to about $200 million. ''I think the project is alive and well. We're still working on it.''
The state government yesterday issued a statement saying the Avalon link would help boost job and investment opportunities and improve goods and services supply chains.
This article first appeared on www.theage.com.au
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