Matthew Guy vows to shelve Suburban Rail Loop if he wins election

The Coalition has vowed to shelve the Suburban Rail Loop project if it wins the state election.

Construction began on the $34.5 billion dollar Cheltenham to Box Hill section of the project in June.

Opposition leader Matthew Guy told Neil Mitchell early-works contracts to the value of $2.3 billion have already been signed and he won’t be tearing them up.

“If you’ve done the early works you can go back to it, but I can’t give you a date when I’m going to go back to it because we need to fix the health system first,” he said.

The Coalition has promised the money will instead be spent on Victoria’s crippled health system if it wins the election in November.

Matthew Guy says he plans to build or upgrade 20 hospitals across the state and boost staffing.

“The priority should be rebuilding our healthcare system,” he told Neil Mitchell.

“I’ve committed to halving the elective surgery wait list of 90,000 people in my first term. To do that we need the infrastructure and staff.

“If you call for an ambulance it’s got to turn up in a timely matter, and when it drops you off at the hospital there’s got to be a bed, and there’s got to be health staff that are not overworked.”

Press PLAY below to hear the detail on the plan to ditch the rail loop in favour of healthcare