Yesterday Daniel Andrews was gaslighting Victorians by claiming Melbourne Airport Rail was part of his dud Suburban Rail Loop project.
He has gone the full Orwell rewriting and rebadging the project on the Big Build website, so that the Melbourne Airport Rail project is described and badged as SRL Airport, in an effort to leverage off the popular support for the airport link.
Until yesterday the project was always referred to as Melbourne Airport Rail. It is a project that was jointly funded by the Turnbull Government, who contributed $5 billion, which was matched by the Andrews Labor Government to build the link to the CBD.
These commitments were made prior to the uncosted back-of-the-envelope plan for the Suburban Rail Loop released during the 2018 State Election campaign.
It never was and never will be part of the Suburban Rail Loop – it is an entirely different project.
Even as recently as September 2022 when the Business Case was released it was referred to as Melbourne Rail Link. The Strategic Appraisal for the Sunshine Route referred to it as Melbourne Airport Rail.
In his desperation to bolster support for his unpopular project, Daniel Andrews is wasting even more public money trying to rewrite reality.
It is a small mark of the hubris and arrogance that characterises his rule.