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I believe you will find that the Japanese bullet train stations are designed for the bullet train and not legacy platforms from another era. You won't find people standing at a platform edge in a bullet train station. So it seems given that the infrastructure (stations and tracks) will need to be purposely built for a high speed train, which means a new alignment to ease curvature and avoid level crossings, etc. If you look at the various new train systems being built in Sydney, most use new stations, tunneling, and long air bridges.
I am waiting for Elon Musk to offer his Boring Company expertise to do the job. And it really does make some sense to consider the Melb-Geelong link for tunnelling for a significant part of the distance. If you are not stopping at old legacy stations, and why would you as that takes time and energy to do that, then you can tunnel direct and it would likely be cheaper.
I agree with Dunk, Melb needs a good rail link to the airport. Before I retired I had to fly down there once a week to meet with my staff there, and it was a nightmare getting into the city. Honestly sometimes it took longer than the flight itself.
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