The tunnel-boring machines excavating the twin nine-kilometre tunnels were stopped in their tracks last Monday.
Late design changes to the Metro Tunnel could see the cost of the project soar even higher than its $3 billion budget blowout, with the opposition calling on the Auditor-General to investigate.
Mr Davis says the tunnel's builders, the Cross Yarra Partnership consortium, are concerned about the government's refusal to moved on the project's 2025 completion date.He warns of "likely additional costs" stemming from the government's demand to deliver the project a year before the 2026 election, despite "increasing complications due to its own poor scoping".
"Traction power for the trains appears to have been under-scoped/underspecified," he writes in the letter. "The additional electricity required for suitable upgrades may well require substation upgrades. The responsibility for these specifications rests entirely with government. "Responsibility for this is a matter of dispute, but it is unlikely that the government can successfully argue that they share no responsibility for failures to fully map these risks."Costs increased after the government changed the dimensions of station boxes and the location of vents after signing contracts with the consortium, Mr Davis says.
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