Victoria scraps infrastructure watchdog, deepening Ben Carroll’s cost-cutting drive
Will shut down Infrastructure Victoria and Economic Growth Victoria, axing up to 50 jobs and saving $12 million over four years as Premier Ben
Victoria will shut down Infrastructure Victoria and Economic Growth Victoria, axing up to 50 jobs and saving $12 million over four years as Premier Ben Carroll sharpens his campaign to cut costs across the state government. The move lands alongside a separate plan to trim 140 senior mandarins from the public service payroll and reach a $100 million savings target before the November election.
Finance Minister Enver Erdogan said staff were told of the closures on Friday morning. He said the government was chasing another $70 million in savings by leaning less on consultants, adding that the latest cuts were aimed at ending duplication and finding efficiencies where possible.
Independent advice on the chopping block
Infrastructure Victoria was set up to give independent advice on how the state should prioritise infrastructure spending. Its closure, however, will need legislation to pass through parliament and could take months.
The decision marks a sharp reversal from the previous government’s stance. A review of the public service by former senior bureaucrat Helen Silver had recommended closing the agencies, but that proposal was rejected under former premier Jacinta Allan. Under Carroll, it is back on the table — and now moving ahead.
Erdogan framed the move as part of a broader cleanup. “This is about extracting the best value and where there’s opportunities to end duplication and find efficiencies, we’re going to take those opportunities,” he said.
Broader austerity push
The shutdown comes after Carroll announced additional staffing cuts at the Suburban Rail Loop Authority and the Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority. Agency budgets will be reduced in line with those lower staff numbers.
Carroll has cast the drive as a “common sense” approach that would not affect frontline services. The government says the changes are designed to trim senior executive expenditure, not the delivery of day-to-day public services.
The latest moves also sit alongside a separate effort to rein in the cost of Victoria’s flagship transport project. Earlier this week, Carroll said the state hoped to save $2 billion on the first stage of the Suburban Rail Loop, with about $1 billion in “unnecessary additions” to be cut and another $1 billion still to be identified through an independent technical review.
On Thursday, he also moved to abolish a 1 per cent public transport fare charge that had been hidden inside annual fare rises to help fund the rail project. The charge, later revealed by the auditor-general’s office, had not been disclosed in the state budget or in a media release.
The closure of Infrastructure Victoria is one of the clearest signs yet that Carroll is willing to unwind parts of the state’s policy machinery to find savings. The next hurdle is parliamentary approval, and the government has not said when the legislation will be introduced.
