A CONFIDENTIAL Black Saturday report warns electricity bills will skyrocket if Ted Baillieu keeps a key pre-election promise.

The report found the cost of the Premier's commitment to replace and bury powerlines could see bills rise by as much as

In the report, the government-appointed Powerline Bushfire Safety Taskforce estimates

Opposition Energy spokeswoman Lily D'Ambrosio said it is clear that the Baillieu Government wanted the explosive report kept secret.

"The Baillieu Government now needs to explain why it kept that interim report and the costings from Victorians."
The Government is expected to respond further to today's report later this afternoon."

The 125-page interim report, handed to the Government last December, finds within two years to pay for it. It exposes a huge dilemma confronting Mr Baillieu: break a core promise or hand more financial pain to one million Victorians.

Mr Baillieu has backed all 67 Black Saturday royal commission recommendations including No.27, which calls for the replacement of thousands of kilometres of powerlines.

Victorians already suffering high cost-of-living expenses would see their average household electricity bill jump from $1260 to as much as $2000 in a single year under the proposed changes.

The minimum many household

electricity bills would rise is more than 20 per cent, or $253 a year

, according to the report, which forecasts

Yet ANOTHER

Policy that was PURELY to gain votes from - and - Victorians

If Newspoll and Nielsen are to be believed, Victorians may just be about to boot out John Brumby as Premier and install Ted Baillieu

THE Victorian Coalition has slipped further behind John Brumby's Labor government with just over a year until the next state election in a poll likely to result in fresh leadership murmurings.

But the protracted slump in the Ted Baillieu-led Coalition's numbers in the latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian, has been counterbalanced by a personal revival in popularity for the Liberal leader.

Mr Baillieu's satisfaction rating has shot up by seven percentage points to 42 per cent. It now outstrips the proportion of people dissatisfied with him for the first time this year.

But the grim reality for the Coalition is that .

In a report to state and federal governments, Infrastructure Australia also issues a blunt warning that it is ''very unlikely'' to support state government proposals for new freeways unless they are tolled.

The publicly funded but independent think tank, which makes recommendations to the federal government about funding of major projects, has received 59 submissions so far this year, withThe report says the Baillieu government told Infrastructure Australia soon after the state election last November that it would assess the former Brumby government's infrastructure plans and then submit proposals.

.

WHISTLING, clapping and loud cheering rang out through Festival Hall, not for a title fight or concert, but rather as 4000 building workers enthusiastically backed a pay deal that has alarmed the Baillieu government.

Workers told the meeting it was because they were ''a strong, militant union'' that they won the ''fantastic'' wage rises. Their basic wage will rise by 5 per cent a year and all overtime will be paid at double time - a total rise estimated by employers to be worth 27 per cent over four years.

Premier Ted Baillieu has expressed ''significant concern'' about rising labour costs in the construction industry - in particular the pay at the Wonthaggi desalination project.

The government is now working on a building code, modelled on one introduced by the Howard government, that would require bidders for state projects to respect freedom of association and stamp out ''unlawful or undesirable'' workplace practices.

Kevin O'Connor, a builders' labourer since he was 17, told the meeting he had never seen anything like the ''fantastic'' deal and said it built on BLF victories from the 1970s. To the loudest cheers of the day he said it was ''your responsibility to say [on sites] 'where's your f---ing ticket?' ''.

CFMEU state secretary Bill Oliver told The Age later that the pay deal was reasonable and reflected the rising cost of living for families and the Victorian building industry was the most productive in Australia.

Mr Oliver attacked the Baillieu government, saying the criticism of wages in construction was ''an excuse'' for not getting major projects moving.

He said the wages were deserved as many of the union's members started at 5.30 or 6 in the morning doing concrete pours in cold winds and rain while deaths in the industry were still too common. ''It's a hard industry.''


But the deal has important economic ramifications and the employer group that helped negotiate it, the Master Builders Association of Victoria, has previously blamed it on the federal workplace laws and a less effective building industry watchdog