These kinds of monster projects go bad as often as not, particularly where the Government is the designer and developer.
It would be a lot safer for TCL to stay out. Their existing toll roads should benefit from WestConnex anyway due to onflowing traffic from one asset to the other. Then if the new owner of WestConnex gets into trouble, as has often happened in the past, TCL can come to the rescue with a profitable acquisition.
Your comment is spot on; I couldn't have phrased it any better.
And very good point about the benefits of onflowing traffic. Incidentally, the potential for fare competition between different operators (mentioned as a positive from a consumer's perspective in the ACCC's release) does not look like a very likely scenario to me, both because it wouldn't be in either operator's interest (given the semi-monopoly nature of the business) and because the routes themselves are not mutually exclusive.
TCL Price at posting:
$11.40 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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