Promises off the rails

ANOTHER broken promise by Tammy Lobato’s Labor Party appears to be the costly fastrail links from Gippsland and other places.
In a costly glossy publication in 2003, on page three, the Minister for Transport trumpeted the (then) $550 million fast rail links from Bendigo, Ballarat, Geelong and the Latrobe Valley which “will be operating in mid2005”. Is this the same project announced by the Labor Party at the 1999 election, which was to cost $6070 million?
Is this the same project that will now cost more than $1 billion?
Maybe Ms Lobato can advise the community when the train will commence operating, how existing services will be affected and why the initial Labor estimate of less than $100 million is now costing Victorian taxpayers more than $1 billion.
L. Pigram,
Officer.