Election 2022: Inland route row ‘could derail campaign’, says Campbell Newman
Former Queensland premier Campbell Newman has called for the final leg of the $15bn Inland Rail route to be recast.
Former Queensland premier Campbell Newman says the Coalition’s Inland Rail route through southeast Queensland is an election issue in waiting and has called for the final leg of the $15bn project to be recast.
The Liberal Democrats Senate candidate said the freight line route from Melbourne should stop at Toowoomba, with a spur to Gladstone, instead of continuing on to Brisbane.
Mr Newman, one of several current and former Liberal National Party politicians to criticise the route, cited high construction costs created by the Toowoomba range and a lack of popularity among residents in the areas it would traverse as reasons for the change.
He said the impacts on traffic and amenity had not yet registered with voters but was likely to become an election issue as the project progressed, particularly among residents at the rail line’s end point at Acacia Ridge, 38km from the Port of Brisbane.
“The idea of huge freight trains around the clock coming into Acacia Ridge and the Port of Brisbane is a huge political issue,” he said. “People are going to go crazy when they know about this.”
Mr Newman said the current route would also have negative impacts, including possible disruptions to floodwater, on the food-producing Lockyer Valley.
“The impact on high-value land in the Lockyer Valley has got farmers up in arms and that’s something that really hasn’t come to a head yet,” he said.
Mr Newman said Toowoomba, which is serviced by the Wellcamp airport, could be used as a major freight hub for southeast Queensland, with freight unloaded from trains on to trucks and driven to Brisbane via an upgraded Warrego Highway.
Coal freight could be taken via rail to Gladstone and an upgraded deep water port, he said.
The Coalition has committed $10m to a business case to test the viability of a Gladstone route, supported by both Labor and the Coalition, in the battle to win the seat of Flynn, where incumbent Ken O’Dowd is retiring.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who supports the Brisbane and Gladstone routes, visited the electorate on Monday and Tuesday where he campaigned alongside Coalition candidate Colin Boyce.
He defended the project’s proposed route and the level of community consultation. “I talk to people up here all the time and they all say they want the Inland Rail to go to Gladstone,” he said.
“It would be an awfully sad day if you walk around this town and say you don’t think it should go to Gladstone.
“We are going to make this industrial city bigger and stronger for the sake of our nation and for the prosperity of the people who live there.”
Toowoomba-based Coalition MP Garth Hamilton said the potential for passenger rail services from Brisbane to Toowoomba was a sweetener that could appease public concerns. “Toowoomba has been setting this up for some time; we will be a main beneficiary of Inland Rail,” Mr Hamilton said.
“Setting us up as a distribution centre for southeast Queensland secures our future growth.
“We absolutely have to have a future where Toowoomba is connected to Brisbane via passenger rail.”
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