Suburban Rail Loop: Labor committee calls for new cost analysis of $34.5 billion project

Victoria is under renewed pressure to recost the first stage of the Suburban Rail Loop after a Labor-led committee called on the government to publish new analysis and details of the taxes it plans to use to fund a third of the project.

On Tuesday, Victoria’s parliamentary accounts and estimates committee released its report into the 2025-26 budget, informed by weeks of public hearings in which ministers and department heads were quizzed about their funding priorities.

The nine-person committee, which includes five Labor MPs, recommended that the Victorian government publish an updated cost-benefit analysis of the $34.5 billion Suburban Rail Loop East.

This would include fresh analysis of the total cost of the project and an underground rail line from Cheltenham to Box Hill, and whether