East West Link: Tony Abbott concedes defeat on Melbourne road
AAP
March 20, 2015
The Australian
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has admitted defeat in his bid to have the East West Link road tunnel built.

MELBOURNE’s East West Link road tunnel won’t be built, but something has to replace it, Prime Minister Tony Abbott says.
Mr Abbott has finally conceded defeat in his attempts to get the Victorian government to build the $6.8 billion stage one of the East West Link.
Premier Daniel Andrews promised to dump the controversial project if he won last year’s election.

Mr Abbott has repeatedly urged him to build the road anyway, but finally acknowledged that race was run.
“If East West Link is off the table as far as the Victorian government is concerned. Let’s see what else might be possible that will address these major bottlenecks and which will be worthy recipients of major commonwealth government funding,” Mr Abbott told ABC radio on Friday.
The prime minister identified the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne’s west and the Hoddle St intersection in Melbourne’s east as the city’s two major traffic bottlenecks.
“What I’m intending to do is keep talking to the premier about what we can do. Not East West Link because he doesn’t want to build East West Link,” he said.
“But what I’m going to do is keep talking to him about other ways of addressing these major traffic choke points.” The federal government had given Victoria $1.5 billion for the road’s eastern stage one, and $1.5 billion for stage two, due to be built in Melbourne’s west.
Mr Andrews has argued for that money to go towards removing suburban level crossings, but Mr Abbott has said commonwealth money must go to projects of national economic significance. AAP