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In the lead-up to the 2014 state election, then-opposition leader Daniel Andrews promised the Metro Tunnel would be built with one-third of funding provided by the state, one-third from the private sector and one-third from the Commonwealth.
One federal government cabinet minister told
The Age the Andrews government had pushed the Commonwealth for cash for the Metro Tunnel in the lead-up to Tuesday’s budget.
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The rail tunnel, which will connect South Kensington to South Yarra through five underground stations, was initially costed at $11 billion, but has blown out by $2.7 billion.
In October the state government reached a deal with the consortium building the Metro Tunnel project, Cross Yarra Partnership, which agreed to pay an extra $1.37 billion on the project. The remaining $1.37 billion will be picked up by Victorian taxpayers and is expected to be included in the state budget when it’s handed down later this month.
âIt does require additional resources for some of this more intensive training.
âThereâs an economic and social dividend from taking people out of long term unemployment and into work, which has consequences for the individualâs quality of life but also for those around them.â
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The centrepiece of the budget will be an aged care package costing about $18 billion, responding to the royal commission into the sector by offering Australians more in-home care packages and spending on residential care.
The government will commit $7.2 billion to an extension to the low and middle-income tax offset for 10 million workers, $10 billion to infrastructure and $9 billion to an increase in the JobSeeker allowance for the unemployed.
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A leaked report on the failures of the Victorian hotel quarantine system has spelled out a raft of negligence, obfuscation and buck passing.
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The COVID-19 situation in India is getting more grim as each day passes, and Australia’s response of cancelling all flights from there and threatening Australian citizens with jail if they try to come home, has certainly caused enormous distress to the Indian community here.
About 9000 Australians have registered with DFAT that they want to return from India, which has now reached 20 million cases and more than 200,000 deaths - figures widely believed to be massively under reported.
Today on
Please Explain, Tory Maguire speaks with health reporter Rachel Clun about the increasingly dire COVID-19 situation in India and the Australians who have been left to fend for themselves.
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Millions of dollars of mining royalty payments are feared to have been squandered and special administrators are scrambling to unravel a maze of entities associated with one of the countryâs most prominent native title organisations.
The Adnyamathanha Traditional Lands Association (ATLA), was set up in 2001 to look after the interests of some 3000 Adnyamathanha people over 41,000 square kilometres in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia.
Today on Please Explain, Tory Maguire speaks with investigative journalist Adele Ferguson, who travelled to South Australia to look into just one example of the endemic and unique challenges faced by many Indigenous organisations across the country.