Job listings for an Inclusion Manager with Melbourne’s Suburban Railway Loop take off online

The Victorian government has been criticized for offering huge salaries in an ‘inclusive management’ job advertisement on a rail project at taxpayers’ expense.

Managers of inclusion and diversity come with an exceptional annual salary of $175,731 to $238,997 – advertised by the Suburban Railway Links Authority (SLRA) on Wednesday.

The successful applicant will be responsible for ‘providing expert advice and services to the organization to ensure that SRLA is an inclusive and diverse workplace’.

They will also lead initiatives through design and development that will ‘ensure that SLRA is known as a workplace that promotes inclusion and diversity through its commitment’.

The Suburban Railway Link is a hugely expensive new railway line that loops around the suburbs from Cheltenham in the east to Werribee in the west through the airport, predicted to cost over $100 billion by the time it is completed in 2085 .

The scale of the expenditure being incurred on the project is highlighted by the huge salary being paid to the diversity manager, and critics have been left alternately furious and bewildered by the advert.

The Australian’s Washington correspondent, Adam Creighton, described the job on Twitter as ‘what’s wrong with Australia in a single job advert’.

Another reporter, Will Kingston, replied, ‘There is no easier way in the world to make $238K, short of winning the lottery.’

‘million dollar quarter per year!! What a grift,’ a user commented below Creighton’s post.

Another wrote, ‘Taxpayer has to foot the bill for ensuring quota more important than quality.’

However some commentators supported the position and its generous remuneration.

One wrote, ‘Huge project, think the salary is fair.’

‘On a positive note, it will help on the old pay gap front,’ replied another.

The job listing emphasizes that the position will provide opportunities for personal and professional development within an ‘equal opportunity employer’.

The list reads, ‘The manager, inclusion and diversity will have a passion for inclusion and diversity.’

‘You will be responsible for leading the development of an inclusion and diversity framework and programs that ensures SRLA is an inclusive workplace where everyone feels safe at work.’

The 90 km suburban railway link project was initially estimated to cost $50 billion when it was first announced by the state government in 2018, but has already at least doubled that.

Construction has already started on two of the proposed phases, from Melbourne Airport to Sunshine and from Cheltenham to Box Hill.

Minister of State Daniel Andrews told the media in August last year that the government had provided an estimated $50 billion but ‘did not provide a definite cost’.

‘We are launching this project, it is fully funded from the state’s point of view,’ he said.

‘One surefire way to ensure that the suburban rail loop will cost more is to scrap it, delay it, set it aside.’

Critics of the project have also questioned the level of demand for the full loop, as it travels from one outer suburban area to another without going into the city.