The consortium proposing a $31 billion high-tech city on Melbourne’s western city fringe asked Victorian taxpayers to chip in more than $1 billion for a rail line to its development.

And documents leaked to The Age show that funding for the new city in East Werribee would be entirely underpinned by money from Chinese Communist Party businesses.

Australian Education City - a company with close ties to the Church of Scientology but little experience in large-scale development - wants to build a university city that would bring more than 24,000 new overseas students to Melbourne.

The consortium has been negotiating with the government for two years over the purchase of the publicly owned East Werribee land.