The federal government has halted plans for the Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail, amid concerns the project could cost more than $45 billion to complete.<\/p>\n
Spanning 1,600 kilometres, the new freight corridor was to be the Commonwealth’s biggest rail project in a century, and promised to deliver faster, more resilient freight; resulting in safer roads and less emissions.<\/p>\n
But today the government revealed it has axed funding for the project beyond the regional New South Wales town of Parkes.<\/p>\n
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The Inland Rail project’s original route from Melbourne to Brisbane.<\/p>\n
Construction between the Victorian town of Beveridge and Parkes will be completed by the end of next year, through the reallocation of $1.75 billion in previously announced “off-budget” funding.<\/p>\n
This will enable double-stacked freight trains to travel between Melbourne and Perth via Parkes.<\/p>\n
Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said the government was “taking sensible decisions to realign the future of Inland Rail and build a safe, efficient and reliable network for the future”.<\/p>\n
In 2025, Ms King described Inland Rail as a “really significant project that the Australian Government is very proud to be delivering for the Australian people”.<\/p>\n
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Catherine King has previously described the project as “really significant”.\u00a0 (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)<\/p>\n
Both Labor and the Coalition went into the 2013 federal election with $300 million pledges to kick-start Inland Rail, with the funding commitment ultimately coming from a victorious Abbott government.<\/a><\/p>\n In 2017, the Morrison government made a $8.4 billion off-budget investment<\/a> in the government-owned Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) to deliver Inland Rail.<\/p>\n Ms King said ARTC had seen “decades of underinvestment” by the former Coalition government.<\/p>\n Project cost estimate triples<\/p>\n Ms King said an independent assessment of Inland Rail conducted by ACIL Allen estimated the cost of delivering the project in full now exceeded $45 billion \u2014 more than three times the current budget allocation.<\/p>\n The economic advisory firm’s assessment also found the project cannot be delivered until 2036, at the earliest.<\/p>\n Three years ago, ARTC estimated the cost of the project had jumped to $31 billion.<\/p>\n Experienced public service executive Kerry Schott cast doubt on ARTC’s cost estimate in her 2023 independent review of Inland Rail<\/a>, saying it “should not be accepted by the shareholder”.<\/p>\n Kerry Schott has previously raised concerns about the project’s scope and delivery costs.\u00a0 (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n “There is insufficient certainty about the scope, the related schedule, and delivery costs to have any confidence in the numbers,” she wrote.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n