The current stopway at the end of Essendon Runway 17 is, by observation from vicinity of Dan Murphy's bottle shop, about 80 metres of hard surface. Then a nasty drop to the Tullamarine Freeway.
If wet from rain, the most likely reason for an over-run, the braking efficiency is considerably reduced on that stopway making it worse than useless. 80 metres of EMAS is surely better than 80 metres of hard surface?