Secret Sunshine Coast rail plan revealed

Part of a top secret business case into a multibillion dollar Sunshine Coast rail project has been revealed in a bid to force the state government to commit its share of funds.

A portion of a top secret business case into a multibillion dollar Sunshine Coast rail project has been revealed in a bid to force the state government to come to the table and commit its share of funds.

The state government has so far refused to commit its half of the $3.2bn needed to build the Beerwah to Maroochydore rail extension, claiming the federal government had “plucked” the cost “out of the sky”.

The federal government, including Fairfax MP Ted O’Brien, have maintained the figure comes from a detailed business case prepared by a private consortium in 2019.

While the business case remains commercial in confidence, federal urban infrastructure minister Paul Fletcher will on Tuesday reveal the portion of the document that confirms the project’s price tag.

The portion of the document, seen by the Courier-Mail, shows the Beerwah to Caloundra portion and the Caloundra to Maroochydore section would cost $1.09bn and $1.82bn respectively.

The federal government has previously stated that it added a 10 per cent contingency to the $2.9bn figure to factor in increased building and material costs.

Mr O’Brien said with the $3.2bn figure proven as accurate, it was up to the state government to decide if it backed the project to be delivered before the 2032 Olympic Games.

“This ridiculous episode has made one thing clear – Labor is focused on delivering for Labor, not for Queensland,” he said.

Mr Fletcher, in a speech last week, conceded getting the Queensland government over the line on the rail project would “take some time”.

“The business case work that has been done to support this is pretty comprehensive … there has been very detailed work and so we’ve arrived at a costing that we think is very well founded,” he said

“But we also wanted to very clearly get on the front foot (in the budget) and say, here is the financial commitment of the Commonwealth Government to what we see as a very important project.”