The making and unmaking of the East-West Link

It is a Monday in April 2013. Ken Mathers, head of Victoria’s road megaprojects agency, the Linking Melbourne Authority, is enjoying a celebratory beer on the rooftop of an inner-city bar, looking out at the city.

He has just spent hours stuffed in a meeting room a few blocks away – a committee meeting of the Victorian Cabinet – where the state’s most senior government ministers had gathered to make a final decision about his pet project: a massive, multi-billion-dollar proposal that, in just a few short months, will become an all-consuming political controversy for Victoria.