North East Link: both tunnels broken through, fit-out under way for 2028

Tunnel boring machine Gillian broke through at Bulleen on 24 July 2026, completing excavation of North East Link's southbound tunnel — and with it both of the project's 6.5-kilometre, three-lane tunnels. Its sister machine Zelda finished the northbound bore on 24 May 2026, just under two years after launching from Watsonia.

Between them, the two machines bored the 5.3-kilometre TBM section of each tunnel, removing 2.5 million tonnes of rock and soil and installing nearly 43,000 precast tunnel segments. Of the remaining 1.2 kilometres, roadheaders mined a 430-metre section between Trinity Grammar and Manningham Road, wide enough for four lanes in each direction, and the interchange sections where the ramps are built make up the rest. When open, North East Link will hold Victoria's longest road tunnels.

Since then, the machines have been leaving. The TBMs are being dismantled, with parts recycled or returned to the manufacturer, and through August and September 2026 components were moved from Bulleen to the Port of Melbourne as overnight oversize loads, with further movements scheduled for October.

The focus is now fit-out. That means building the road inside the tunnels with about 700,000 tonnes of reinforced concrete, installing around 3,300 kilometres of cabling and completing 51 emergency passages between the tunnels, alongside above-ground work on the interchange ramps, the Motorway Control Centre and the Yarra Link green bridge in Bulleen.

Noise walls near Belle Vue Primary School have drawn attention. The Age reported in late August 2026 that one planned noise wall had been dropped and another reduced in height, and the Victorian Greens called for an inquiry into the project. The project says further noise modelling and design development confirmed a wall along Bulleen Road was not required to meet its noise standards, and that the new walls at the school — three to four metres along the oval and six to nine metres towards Koonung Creek Reserve — were set through noise modelling against its Environmental Performance Requirements.

The essentials

The project connects the M80 Ring Road to the Eastern Freeway (M3), fixing the missing link in Melbourne's freeway network. The Eastern Freeway upgrades between Hoddle Street and Springvale Road add more than 45 kilometres of new lanes, including express lanes, and Melbourne's first dedicated busway, and the program includes more than 34 kilometres of new and upgraded walking and cycling paths.

Who is building it

The Primary Package — design, construction, financing, operation and maintenance of the tunnels — is held by the Spark Consortium:

Webuild · CPB Contractors · GS Engineering and Construction · China Construction Oceania · Ventia · Capella Capital · John Laing Investments · Pacific Partnerships · DIF

Nine parties on one package is worth pausing on. At $11.1 billion, the Primary Package sits well beyond what any single Australian contractor carries alone, and the consortium structure reflects that — construction capability from Webuild and CPB, international partners in GS Engineering and China Construction, services from Ventia, and four financial parties.

Infrastructure Australia's 2024 Market Capacity Report found the top five Tier 1 contractors held over 40 per cent of public infrastructure contract value. North East Link shows the other side of that concentration: a package so large that assembling a bidder means assembling a syndicate.

The project was packaged as one primary PPP plus four secondary packages, with the PPP procured first. The M80 Ring Road Completion (AMA: Acciona, AECOM and MACA Civil) and the Eastern Freeway's Burke Road to Tram Road stage (Nexus: Laing O'Rourke, Symal, WSP and Arcadis) were awarded in late 2023; Hoddle Street to Burke Road (Momentum: John Holland, Seymour Whyte, Jacobs and Mott MacDonald) and Tram Road to Springvale Road (Synergy: CPB Contractors, BMD and Arup) followed in August 2025.

The number to be careful with

North East Link is routinely described using whichever figure suits the point being made. Two different numbers circulate:

• $26 billion — the total project, jointly funded by the Australian Government ($5 billion) and the Victorian Government ($21.21 billion)
• $11.1 billion — the Primary Package PPP alone

Only the first is the project cost. The Grattan Institute's Marion Terrill noted in 2020 that when the Brumby government first committed to North East Link in 2008, it was costed at $6 billion, against $26 billion today — though comparing an 18-year-old estimate to a current cost without adjusting for escalation and scope is exactly the error that makes most cost-overrun coverage useless.

The tolling model

Victoria introduced legislation in March 2020 for a state-owned tolling company for North East Link, making it the first Victorian road whose tolling rights are held by the State. The North East Link Act 2020 followed, and the North East Link State Tolling Corporation was established in March 2021. Toll revenue goes towards the cost of building and maintaining the tunnels; the upgraded Eastern Freeway and the M80 Ring Road remain toll free. In October 2026 Indra announced it had been selected by the State Tolling Corporation to supply the tolling back-office system.

This differs from the private concession arrangements that financed most Australian motorways, and it changes where long-term revenue risk sits. For contractors the effect is minimal; for anyone reading this as a template for future road procurement, it is the most significant feature of the project.

What to watch

1. Fit-out progress inside the tunnels: the road deck, around 3,300 kilometres of cabling and 51 emergency passages.
2. The run to 2028. Tunnel excavation finishing in July 2026 is a milestone, not the finish — fit-out, systems, ventilation and commissioning follow before the tunnels open to traffic.
3. The secondary packages on the Eastern Freeway and M80, which are due to open alongside the tunnels in 2028.
4. What follows in Victoria. Government infrastructure investment peaked at $24.2 billion in 2023-24 and is projected to ease to $15.3 billion by 2029-30, according to the 2026-27 Budget. North East Link's completion in 2028 falls within that period, and the capability assembled for it will be available for what comes next.

Published 7 September 2026 · Updated 4 October 2026