PoliticalClaims.au

While the claim is factually accurate - the Coalition did break this promise - the context matters: 1. **The breach was detected and documented quickly.** ABC Fact Check identified the broken promise within six months, providing transparency to voters about the government's failure to meet its commitment [1]. 2. **The promise may have been made with genuine intent.** Abbott's acknowledgment during the campaign that most projects already had cost-benefit analyses suggests the commitment was made in good faith, with awareness that such analyses were standard practice [2]. 3. **The East West Link project was ultimately abandoned.** The federal government's $1 billion allocation was part of a larger project that was cancelled by the subsequent Victorian state government at significant cost [3].

This doesn't excuse the broken promise, but it does show that the project itself was problematic and ultimately deemed not worth pursuing. 4. **This represents a broken process promise, not necessarily wasteful spending.** The claim itself relates to the failure to conduct proper analysis before committing funds, not to the outcome of the spending.

The fact that the project was ultimately cancelled might suggest that had the cost-benefit analysis been completed and published as promised, the project's problems might have been identified earlier.