CATHERINE KING & GLENN STERLE – MEDIA RELEASE – “INLAND RAIL: DERAILED FROM THE START” – THURSDAY, 12 AUGUST 2021

If you want to know about the Morrison-Joyce Government’s management of the Inland Rail project, you just have to read the title of the Senate report – “Inland Rail: derailed from the start”. This project has been derailed from the start by Coalition mismanagement.

This report reaffirms the importance of this project, while highlighting the need for better planning, better community engagement and better oversight.

Incredibly, the Morrison-Joyce Government still has no plan where Inland Rail will start, where it will end, the route it will take or how it will interact with existing stations up and down the country.

Under the Deputy Prime Minister’s stewardship, total costs for this project have already blown out from $4.4 billion to $9.3 billion to $14.5 billion, without any clarity being provided on the shape the actual line will take. 

This project is too important to stuff up, but that is exactly what the Morrison Government is doing.

This report offers a better way.

The report calls for better planning, better consultation and more transparency: all of which has been rejected by the Coalition Senators on the committee.

But, despite clear management failures, Coalition Senators rejected the need for ongoing parliamentary oversight of this integral project.

Despite the Inland Rail project being predicated on a business case that is now 6 years old, Coalition Senators also rejected the recommendation that the Government commission an independent review and update of the business case, including looking into the possible extension of the line to the Port of Gladstone. 

The committee’s recommendations are sound and will only strengthen this important national project. 

The Deputy Prime Minister needs to step up, demonstrate leadership and get this nation building project back on track.

THURSDAY, 12 AUGUST 2021