Some of Victoria's most dangerous level crossings will not be fixed under the state government's signature program, which is also suffering a multi-billion dollar budget blowout, a new report says.
The state's auditor-general found Labor's flagship policy program has been running in conflict to the oft-repeated election promise objective.
"Contrary to publicly stated objectives, not all of the 50 level crossings selected for removal are the most dangerous and congested," read the report, published on Thursday.
The auditor-general's analysis of the 50 sites found only 31 actually fit the bill.
Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan defended the program and said while in opposition, Labor did not have access to a VicRoads report that identified crossings because it was not released by the then-coalition government.
"We used publicly-available information that was available to us at the time," she said of the locations chosen when Labor was in opposition.
Ms Allan said the current program includes 30 crossings identified by the RACV and denied politics played a role in the sites chosen.
The program's business case was not completed until April, despite work starting in 2015 and the audit found the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources did not assess the merits of the 50 crossings.
"The role of the public service to give full and frank advice was not realised in this case," the report reads.
"(The department) should have advised the incoming government that an analysis was needed of the selected sites against the program objective."
Another two crossings have been added to the list and the cost of the program has skyrocketed.
"The cumulative cost of the program has increased by more than 38 per cent - based on the initial estimate of $5-6 billion in 2015 - to $8.3 billion at July 2017," the report reads.
Treasurer Tim Pallas said the increase was "in many ways an illustration of why governments should probably never talk about the cost of a project until they sign contracts".
"The reason that there have been so-called cost blowouts, and let me say I take exception to it, (is) there have been substantial enhancements in the project," he told reporters.
But opposition public transport spokesman David Davis said public money had been "squandered".
"They've gone crazy with these crossings but they haven't managed the finances," he told reporters.
"They were warned by the auditor that they needed a business case before they proceeded and they proceeded nonetheless."
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