METRO///IN//DOUBT

The North-West Metro project has been hurled around like a piece of flotsam on a stormy political ocean in recent days as it's progress and very existence seemed at first assured, then in serious doubt, and finally all-but-crushed after this morning's antics.

On Monday, ABC news reported that Morris Iemma was personally overseeing 'first ground broken' on the NW Metro project. In reality, drilling occurred in a number of sites, including Barangaroo, to test Sydney subterranean sandstone quality and decide the Metro's exact route. work had officially begun and the people of Sydney could be assured that the Metro would go ahead.

Then on Tuesday the NSW electricity sector sale failed to pass parliament and a NSW Government windfall of between $10bn and $20bn (depending on who you ask) went out the window. Treasurer Costa assured us that no current project in the budgeted forward estimates was reliant on this money. Of course, the NW Metro was a 10-year, $12bn project and so the majority of cost was indeed not in the current forward estimates and could fairly be assumed to have flown out the window with the power sell-off.

If that wasn't enough to sing=k the project, today has brought two new bombshells that surely put the entire project in serious doubt. Firstly, the sacking of Treasurer Michael Costa. In his press conference this morning, Costa spoke more candidly about the effect of the failed power sell-off and said the NW Metro would have to be at least postponed until the State's finances could be bedded down. So much for the promise to have the northern end of the Metro completed by 2015. Finally, with the departure of Premier Morris Iemma, the two biggest supporters of the Metro, Costa and Iemma are gone, leaving a huge opportunity to cancel the gargantuan project before it has gotten off the ground.

The biggest losers here, of course, are the residents and businesses of the north-west who will again be waiting to find out the uncertain future of their access to public transport. The line was to provide public transport to the North-West Growth Centre, the Hills District, Norwest Business Park, Macquarie University and connect to the main rail network at Epping.

The new Premier, Nathan Rees, is a factional rival of the outgoing premier and hasn't weighed in on the Metro issue - I guess as the Water Minister he hasn't really been asked. Time will tell. Stay tuned...