Tom Elliott weighs in on the potential cost of cancelling the SRL | 3AW Melbourne

For months, probably for a couple of years now, I've been trying to get a sense of if we axe the project, how much will it cost?Well, I've done the numbers and here it is.Now, we've already spent $7 billion.That money is spent.It can't be got back.It has been paid out.

It's the holes that have already been dug.It's the tunnel boring machines.It's the roadworks.It's this, it's that.$7 billion.Terminating contracts will cost us almost $2 billion.

So the payout to terminate existing contracts that have been signed, another $2 billion.So $7 plus $2 is $9.And then if we don't go ahead with the tunnel, we're going to have a huge amount of remediation works.We've already got a couple of giant holes in the ground, there's dirt everywhere, there's things that have been knocked down, things that have to be rebuilt.This is if we terminate.Let's just say there's another $1 billion that has to be spent there.

So $7 billion already spent, $2 billion for legal costs to terminate contracts, another minimum of $1 billion for remediation.That adds up to $10 billion not to proceed with the suburban rail loop.$10 billion.

Now, to put that into perspective with other projects that have been cancelled, it's like doing 17 Commonwealth Games.So if we cancelled the Commonwealth Games 17 times over, that would cost $10 billion.One suburban rail loop cancellation is 17 Commonwealth Games.Or if we cast our minds back 12 years to the cancellation of the East West Link, we could cancel that six times because that costs $1 .6 billion.We do that six times, that's $10 billion.So it would be probably the biggest waste of money ever seen in Australian history in terms of a project started and then cancelled.