New Infrastructure Minister warns Inland Rail over budget and going to be delayed

New Infrastructure Minister Catherine King warns the $14.5bn Inland Rail project is facing widespread problems.

New Infrastructure Minister Catherine King has warned the $14.5bn Inland Rail project is facing widespread problems. Picture: Alan Barber

Infrastructure Minister Catherine King says the nation’s $14.5bn Inland Rail project is facing widespread problems, hitting out at the Morrison government for perpetuating a “myth” that the project was going to be ­delivered on time, within budget.

In one of her first interviews as minister, Ms King said the proposed 2027 completion date for the 1700km freight rail line between Melbourne and Brisbane was a fallacy, and the “problems were everywhere”; each of the 13 sub-projects had its “own complexities”.

“The myth the previous government seems to have tried to perpetrate (is) they were going to deliver this on time when they were never going to deliver this on time. It’s absolutely clear from the initial views that I’ve had about this project,” she told The Australian.

“It is absolutely clear … that this project has blown out from a budget point of view and from a timing point of view. My job is to try … to get this back on track to deliver it on time.”

With only 133km of the new or upgraded tracks completed so far, despite it being the signature project of her predecessor, former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, Ms King declined to outline a more realistic timeline, saying only it was “too important a project for the nation … to get wrong”.

“In every state, there are significant problems around, whether environmental approvals, environmental offsets or the alignment,” she said.

The problems were not confined to Inland Rail, Ms King said, and it was “really clear” the Morrison government’s infrastructure investment pipeline had “some real problems … that they were papering over”.

“There was a lot of focus on getting announcements out the door and looking to be seen to be doing things,” she said. “But we are looking through the infrastructure investment pipeline line by line with a view very clearly to actually ensure we can deliver these projects.”

Ms King pointed to the $660m car park fund as just one example of where announcements were made without first consulting local councils or state governments, but said the previous government’s infrastructure program was “riddled” with similar issues.

With capacity constraints and severe labour shortages forcing state governments to pause a raft of megaprojects, Ms King said she would work with Immigration Minister Andrew Giles to address the “immediate” skills shortages through a skilled visa program.

Ms King said her focus as minister would be “equity of ­investment”, pointing to western Sydney as an area “groaning” ­because of a lack of infrastructure investment.

“What’s happened over the past decade is that (Infrastructure Australia) has tried to be all things to all people,” she said, pointing to its swollen priority list. My view is that it needs to be much sharper in terms of its ­advice to the federal government.”