Knight cartoon asks if Victoria can be saved from SRL spending?

Runaway train movies are the type of films that have you on the edge of your seat, bracing for the eventual disastrous crash, when train and passengers meet the end of the line. We watch, sweating in the hope that the hero or heroine saves the day with an intervention* that results in the whole thing being brought to rest barely millimetres from disaster.

Sound familiar? That is what is going on at the moment in Victoria, specifically with the mammoth Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) project as part of the government’s Big Build Infrastructure campaign.

Big Build was the pet project of former Premiers Dan Andrews and Jacinta Allan. It was designed to link the southeast of Melbourne, starting at Cheltenham, then going in a big loop around through Box Hill, on to Tullamarine and the airport, then to Sunshine, where it would join up with Werribee and go into the city. The link promises around 90 kilometres of commuter* rail magnificence.

The first stage, SRL East from Cheltenham to Box Hill, will have six underground stations.

The latest estimated cost of this first stage was around $30 billion, but with building costs rapidly rising, the Victorian auditor general* said it would be more like $50 billion, with the completion date extending well past the 2035 delivery date originally projected.

New Premier Ben Carroll – not wanting to cancel the project and wind up with massive default fees* to the tune of tens of billions of dollars – promised he would rein in the cost of the project with cuts to what he called “unnecessary bells and whistles”.

That meant dumping things like connecting walkways, subways to existing services and carparks. Looks like Melbourne’s getting an el cheapo Temu version of the SRL.

Unfortunately, those cuts was only going to save $2 billion bucks. To make matters worse, station construction was unfunded and a secret commuter rail levy to raise funds for the project, as disclosed by the Herald Sun, was now going to be scrapped, or so the premier said.

So you can see why the SRL looked like a runaway train. If unchecked, the Victorian economy was on a hayride to hell.

So I got out my pencil and paper and decided this would be the topic for my daily editorial cartoon. I have loved drawing trains ever since I was a kid!

I felt the cartoon had to look like a panel in a comic book. It had to have urgency, bold perspective and tension. I had visions of Premier Carroll as a B-Grade, flabby superhero attempting to halt this speeding train, which was filled with Victorian taxpayers. The premier had to achieve this before it collided with financial reality.

I opted for a Superman costume for the premier – a juxtaposition* indeed – and drew him at the front of the train, putting his back into it, trying to halt the runaway costs of the SRL. The train driver and passengers stare out the front window at him with a look of fear and helplessness.

Alas, in the cartoon it seems the train’s velocity* is unrestrained*. As the Victorian auditor general stated in his report, project costs will increase, it will burden the Victorian economy and not end well.

My advice: take the bus.

POLL

GLOSSARY

• intervention: stepping into a situation to fix a problem
• commuter: people who use the train to travel to work or school regularly
• auditor general: an independent public official who goes through government spending to make sure public money is being spent properly
• default fees: fees charged when you miss an obligation
• juxtaposition: placing two ideas or characters side-by-side to compare them or highlight their differences
• velocity: speed of an object moving in a specific direction
• unrestrained: not able to be held back or controlled

EXTRA READING
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Labor’s Ben Carroll gets top job in Victoria
Take next exit for ‘Education State’

QUICK QUIZ
1. What is a runaway train movie?
2. Why does Mark Knight compare the Victorian Government’s Suburban Rail Link project to a runaway train movie?
3. In this comparison, who is the metaphorical hero?
4. How is the hero portrayed in Mark Knight’s cartoon? What visual cues are used to indicate he is saving the day?
5. Does the cartoon depict that the hero will succeed or fail? What visual cues imply this likely result?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Speech writer
Let’s imagine you are a political speech writer. You can choose whether you are writing a speech for the Victorian Premier, Ben Carroll, or the Victorian opposition leader, Jess Wilson. If you are writing for Mr Carroll, write a speech that talks up the positives of the Suburban Rail Loop project and the $2 billion savings made by removing some items from the project. If you are writing for Ms Wilson, your job is to criticise the project and the plans to downgrade the works. Do your best to argue your point and influence voters to see you and your political party positively.

Time: allow 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English; Civics and Citizenship

2. Extension
Anticipate some difficult questions that journalists might ask either of the politicians after they give the speech you wrote for them. Choose the three trickiest questions you think of and draft an answer for each that continues the positive spin.

Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English; Civics and Citizenship

VCOP ACTIVITY
What happens next?
Imagine this story is part of an animated series made up of three cartoons. The three cartoons tell the complete story and this article is only Part One. Think about what the rest of the story could be and draw the next two cartoons that tell the story.

Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Arts, Visual Communication Design, Critical and Creative Thinking