Federal Budget 2017 offers $8.4b boost for inland rail link between Brisbane and Melbourne

THE 2017 budget has delivered an $8.4 billion shot in the arm for one of the state’s most anticipated projects, and 16,000 jobs will come with it.

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THE century-old dream of an inland rail link between Brisbane and Melbourne is closer to reality after an $8.4 billion boost in the Budget.

Treasurer Scott Morrison made the Inland Rail — the biggest rail project since the link across the Nullarbor 100 years ago — a Budget centrepiece.

“In one of the biggest investments ever seen in regional Australia the Government will fund the Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail project with $8.4 billion,’’ he said.

Pledging a start on construction within the year, Mr Morrison said the 1700km project would support 16,000 jobs at the construction peak, boosting the economies of Brisbane, Melbourne and scores of regional communities along the route.

The Commonwealth-owned Australian Rail Track Corporation, which has been sounding out southeast Queensland land owners on land acquisitions in the past 12 months, is expected to start construction in the 2017-18 financial year.

The private sector is expected to partner the Commonwealth on challenging aspects of the project, such as major tunnelling work on a 126km section between Toowoomba and Kagaru.

The project will also require an 8.9km tunnel through the Toowoomba Range.

Queenslander Everald Compton, who for two decades has pursued the Inland Rail in his capacity as chairman of Australian Transport and Energy Corridor Ltd, said the announcement came almost 21 years after he first put a proposal on the desk of then prime minister John Howard.

More than 90 years before that, Melbourne business interests were pursuing the same proposal, which has the potential to open up Australia’s eastern inland to major development.

“With this funding on the table it looks as though, finally, Australia will see a project come to fruition which we should have had one century ago,’’ the recently retired Mr Compton said.

“Canada and America opened up their interior with rail more than a century ago.

“Now it will be Australia’s turn.’’

With the capacity to take thousands of trucks off the highways daily, the rail — carrying double-decker freight loads at up to 110km/h — is expected to offer primary producers massive cuts in transport costs.

It is also believed to be planned to take in the Wellcamp Airport outside Toowoomba, potentially turning the international airport with a weekly air link to China into a major export hub.

Various private sector outfits, including ATEC Ltd, are expected to offer to partner the ARTC in delivering the massive project.

Transport and Infrastructure Minister Darren Chester said the project, which crosses three states, was an opportunity for the Commonwealth and states to work together.

“It will drive the nation’s prosperity through regional development and strategic transport investment,’’ he said.

Originally published as Federal Budget 2017 offers $8.4b boost for inland rail link between Brisbane and Melbourne