The cost of building the Morley-Ellenbrook rail line has blown out to more than $1.3 billion after the signing of the main construction contract with Laing O’Rourke.
The cost of building the Morley-Ellenbrook rail line has blown out to more than $1.3 billion after the signing of the main construction contract with Laing O'Rourke.
The state government disclosed key details of the project yesterday for the first time.
The main construction contract is worth $753 million, according to tenders.wa.gov.au.
The state government said the total project budget for the main contract, including contingency, escalation and ancillary costs, was estimated to come in at $1.1 billion.
In addition, it disclosed that a further $233 million of spending on the Morley-Ellenbrook Line had been included in two related projects.
These were the upgrade of Bayswater station, where the Morley-Ellenbrook line will spur off the existing Midland line, and the Tonkin Gap project.
The latter project includes civil and structural works between Bayswater and Malaga to allow rail access in and out of the Tonkin Highway and to prepare the corridor for rail to be laid.
“The direct costs of the Morley-Ellenbrook Line enabling works on those two projects is estimated at $233 million,” the government stated yesterday.
It also claimed this contracting strategy provided significant time and cost savings on the overall project but did not provide any details.
The main contract includes construction of a 21-kilometre rail line and five new stations at Morley, Noranda, Malaga, Whiteman Park and Ellenbrook, with a future station to be developed at Bennett Springs East.
In its announcement, the government said more than 6,500 jobs would be created as a result of the Morley-Ellenbrook line, providing a significant boost to the WA economy.
It has also estimated that by 2031, the rail line will take more than 10,000 car trips off roads in the north-eastern suburbs each day.
It expected all main construction work would be completed in 2023-24.
Shadow transport minister Libby Mettam said the cost for the project has grown from $863 million to $1.1 billion for the main budget with $233 million in enabling works.
Ms Mettam estimated the overall cost of the government’s Metronet rail program, which also includes extensions to the Yanchep, Thornlie and Armadale lines, had increased to $5.7 billion.
“Metronet is now almost double its original budget without a single track of new rail line being laid in almost four years’ of government,” Ms Mettam said.
She said it was disappointing that despite promising construction of the Ellenbrook train line would commence in 2019, it was only now a contract had been signed.
“Furthermore, this signature rail project has not been funded in the past three State Budgets with the only funding provided for this project from the Federal Liberal government,” Ms Mettam said.
“This project is already late and over budget and it hasn’t even started.
“It’s clear this government has no idea how to deliver transport infrastructure projects.”
Transport Minister Rita Saffioti defended the government's record.
“The community have been waiting a long time for their railway - we promised it in 2017 and when we were lucky enough to be elected to government, we immediately began planning the project,” Ms Saffioti said.
“Now the contract has been signed, the funding secured and early works are underway."
Ms Mettam also criticised the awarding of the contract to a foreign-owned contractor.
However, the bigger talking point in the industry was the fact long-time market leader CPB Contractors had missed yet another big infrastructure contract in WA.
A CPB consortium had been short-listed for the Ellenbrook project but was beaten out by UK-based Laing O’Rourke.
A CPB consortium was also short-listed for the $860 million Bunbury Outer Ring Road project but lost out to Spanish group ACCIONA.
CPB’s last big win, in December last year, was the $1 billion contract to build the Yanchep and Thornlie rail line extensions.