The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, has “a clear obligation to return the money” allocated to it by the federal government to build the East West Link toll road, the deputy prime minister, Warren Truss, said.
Speaking to the ABC’s Radio National on Thursday, Truss said the $1.5bn should be refunded to Canberra, since Andrews had dumped the 18km toll-road project to focus instead on public transport infrastructure. The refund was accounted for as savings in Tuesday’s federal budget.
“When it really comes to the bottom line, we pay the Victorian government in a year a lot more money than they pay us,” Truss told the ABC.
The federal government regards the East West Link as a much needed project of national significance, and the $3bn total in funding would be given to the first Victorian government willing to build the road, the 2015 budget papers state.
Truss reiterated on Thursday that the funding could not be allocated to other projects, after Andrews said on Wednesday that the Labor government would not be returning the money. “I don’t know that the federal government are asking us for that,” he said.
“I’m not interested in having a childish argument. I’ve made it clear to him [Abbott] that Victorians are sick and tired of that. We’re not giving back any money.”
Andrews has been urging Abbott to allow the funding to be used instead to fund the $5.5bn Western Distributor tunnel, which would run across the Maribyrnong River to CityLink, an unsolicited proposal put forward by developer Transurban.
Abbott has called on Andrews to provide a proposal for the project but maintains that, in the interim, the $1.5bn in funding should be returned.
