LNP hit with $500m rail budget bomb as cost blowout laid bare
Construction costs on the Cross River Rail and Gold Coast Light Rail projects have blown out by close to $1 billion with revelations Labor signed off on a large increase just before the state election.
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Cross River Rail will cost Queensland taxpayers almost $7bn, with Premier David Crisafulli revealing Labor ‘secretly signed off’ on a $494m increase on the eve of the state election.
Mr Crisafulli and Transport Minister Brent Mickelberg revealed the figure after Deputy Opposition Leader Cameron Dick and transport spokesman Bart Mellish on Monday said the cost had only risen by $170m.
However, Mr Crisafulli said the $494m increase in the cost of the Cross River Rail project was in addition to the $170m released by Labor.
“It was signed off in September, and no one from the former government thought that Queensland deserved to know about a $494m blowout relating to Cross River Rail,” he said.
“What’s particularly concerning is yesterday, in a bid to try and airbrush history, we had members of parliament coming out revealing figures that are categorically untrue and seriously undercooked to try and get ahead of the game in crab walking away from their record.”
It takes the project’s price tag to a mammoth $6.9bn – $1.5bn more than it was slated to cost when it was announced in 2017.
However, Labor argues the increase was a funding envelope agreed to in anticipation of future cost escalations.
It comes as the Gold Coast Light Rail project has also blown out in cost and suffered delays.
The Gold Coast Light Rail linking Broadbeach to Burleigh Heads is a year behind schedule and has blown out by $330m to an eye-watering $1.55bn.
The full opening of the Gold Coast Light Rail stage three will be pushed back a year to mid-2026.
The project budget has suffered a $330m overrun, with the 6.7km link now set to cost $1.55bn, according to new figures revealed by the Department of Transport in a brief handed to new Transport Minister Brent Mickelberg.
Commuters now face a staged opening, with the department of Transport working with consortium GoldlinQ and major contractor John Holland Group to progressively open the line into mid-2026.
The state government has drip-fed project cost increases that occurred under Labor, prompting Deputy Opposition Leader Cameron Dick and transport spokesman Bart Mellish to on Monday “bell the cat” by announcing the two rail project increases they knew about.
Mr Mellish justified withholding the Cross River Rail and Gold Coast Light Rail cost increases from Queenslanders before the election by reiterating his pledge to reveal updates twice a year.
Mr Dick argued the LNP was softening Queenslanders to cut projects.
“Every Queenslander knows it doesn’t matter whether you are building a front deck or a shed in the backyard or a major infrastructure project in Queensland, it costs more to build, and so every Queenslander knows what David Crisafulli is doing. He is softening them up for major cuts to the capital program in Queensland,” he said.
“You do this through two cycles. You do a mid-year budget update where you tally all of those things up, update Queenslanders on project costs, but also revenue increases, and then you provide an update on the fiscal position of the state, and then you do it in the budget itself.”
Mr Mickelberg attributed the significant delay to the former government’s controversial best-practice industry conditions, which he and construction experts argued had sapped productivity.
The LNP has promised to reintroduce a Queensland productivity commission that it said would improve output on the state’s construction sites.
It is also expected to tinker with the CFMEU-friendly Best Practice Industry conditions policy, which Mr Mickelberg said “severely limited” the number of hours of site work on stage three of the light rail project, which delayed major works, including site pours.
“Under Labor, Gold Coast Light Rail is off the rails with millions in overruns and a year in delays,” he said.
“The mismanagement ends here.
“We will be having frank conversations to ensure efficiency moving forward.
“We must get this project back on track now, which starts with restoring productivity on to the worksite.
“We’ve been clear that projects will be delivered on time and on budget under this government and that includes lifting productivity, which has been the worst in the nation.”
After the $36bn Pioneer-Burdekin Pumped Hydro, $181m Olympics venues and $500m Roma St Station upgrade, light rail is the third major cost escalation the LNP has attributed to the former Labor government.
Of the original $1.2bn cost for stage three of the Gold Coast Light Rail, the federal government would tip in $395.6m, while Gold Coast City Council added $91.5m.
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