Cross River Rail cost revealed: Final figure blows out to $19bn
Queensland’s most expensive infrastructure project has quadrupled in cost to $19.04bn, sparking fierce debate over who’s to blame for the massive blowout.
Cross River Rail will cost $19.04bn – almost four times the original $5.7bn figure – due to poor construction productivity and hidden costs, Transport Minister Brent Mickelberg says.
The latest estimate is $2bn higher than the $17bn Mr Mickelberg revealed in December after the LNP came to government.
He said the $19.04bn figure had been settled after negotiations with the major contractor.
It is almost four times the $5.7bn cost first promised by then premier Annastacia Palaszczuk a decade ago.
Mr Mickelberg argued the former Labor government had hidden costs, including for the core tunnel infrastructure and associated projects critical for the operation of the tunnel.
“Queensland taxpayers will rightly be asking how it got to this point,” he said.
“I do want to highlight the significant delays to the project caused by industrial action led by the CFMEU.
“Productivity has returned to Cross River Rail.
“Our government has also made it clear that contractors would be held to account for their performance.”
Mr Mickelberg said funding was conditional on performance and contractors meeting major milestones on time.
“If they don’t deliver, they won’t get paid,” he said.
He said the opening was still expected in 2029.
Cross River Rail is expected to be Queensland’s most expensive single infrastructure project in history, taking 13 years to build.
The $19.04bn cost includes $12.4bn for the design, construction and maintenance of the twin tunnels, $2.1bn for the associated works such as new stabling facilities and station rebuilds and $1.7bn to integrate the Cross River Rail project into the broader public transport network.
It also covers the provision of alternative transport services for customers during track closures during construction.
Cross River Rail will utilise the high-cost European Train Control System, an automated signalling program allowing trains to run closer together and stop accurately at stations.
The government will spend $1.5bn fitting the ETCS on the Cross River Rail network as part of a broader rollout across the region and $1.3bn fitting it to New Generation Rollingstock trains.
Opposition transport spokesman Bart Mellish, a transport minister in the previous Labor government, in December accused Mr Mickelberg of “cooking the books”.
“The Minister for Transport has lost all credibility by trying to use 25 years of maintenance costs to inflate the project costs of the Cross River Rail,” he said.
“Adding the cost of buses to be used across the whole of South East Queensland to the project is also laughable.”
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