The delivery of Victoria’s multi-billion dollar Metro Tunnel project is well underway and it is expected to create an additional 2000 jobs, bringing the count to 7000 during peak construction.
Opportunities will include up to 500 for apprentices, trainees and engineering cadets, as announced by Premier Daniel Andrews.
“This is the biggest project that our state has seen for a very long time, perhaps ever. It is Infrastructure Australia’s number one priority for all the public transport benefits it will deliver, but along the way so many thousands of families are going to benefit through employment, through skills.
“And they’re not jobs for a month or six months, they’re jobs for a long period of time, this is such a big project, so it’s a long pipeline of work as well,” the Premier said.
This massive project will be utilising mostly local content, with over 88 per cent of materials that will be used to build the underground stations and tunnels to be sourced locally – including 93 per cent of local steel.
Approximately 65 per cent of the Metro Tunnel will be delivered by small and medium-sized businesses, a massive win for local companies.
To ensure that more Victorians will benefit from the opportunities created by this project – including ex-automotive workers from Ballarat and Geelong – a new pre-cast factory will be established in Melbourne’s west-side.
The new factory will be producing thousands of pre-cast concrete segments which are needed to line the nine-kilometre twin tunnels included in the project. On the other hand, other regional areas such as the Latrobe Valley will be benefitting from fabrication work packages.
Earlier this month, two of the four major contracts have been awarded. The Cross Yarra Partnership – a joint venture between LendLease, John Holland, Bouygues Construction and Capella Capital – won the contract to design and build the Metro Tunnel and five new stations. CPB Contractors, together with Bombardier Transportation, has been awarded the Rail Systems Alliance (RSA) contract.
John Holland has also won a $324 million early works package – the first major contract for the project – in 2016.
Expressions of Interest for the final major works package of the Metro Tunnel – the Rail Infrastructure Alliance (RIA) – has been released.
Early works on Metro Tunnel are well underway, with major works on the new stations and tunnels expected to commence in 2018. Metro Tunnel is projected to be completed by 2026.
Source: Premier of Victoria, SBS News and ABC News
