Inland Rail route from Toowoomba to Gladstone gets $10 million business case support

The first step towards extending the Inland Rail to the Queensland coast will be taken after Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce pledged $10 million to the business case, despite arguments continuing over its current route.

The first step towards extending the Inland Rail from Toowoomba to Gladstone will be taken after Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce pledged $10 million to the business case, despite arguments continuing over its current route.

It would look at a potential 646km spur route to allow freight to be taken to the Central Queensland port city.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce announcing a $10 million business case into a Toowoomba to Gladstone Inland Rail link. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

It neutralises a political issue for the Coalition, with Labor candidate for Flynn and Gladstone Mayor Matt Burnett, as well as the LNP’s Colin Boyce, campaigning for the extension.

Despite numerous delays to the project, Mr Joyce on Friday said the project “is not a dream”.

“It will create opportunities in Goondiwindi and grow the cities of Albury and Toowoomba right down into Victoria, the benefits will be seen,” he said.

“Extending the line to Gladstone would ensure the benefits of this nation-building piece of infrastructure are felt farther and wider.”

The announcement is despite an Inland Rail Gladstone Link released just last year finding “demand for the connection not sufficient to justify the capital cost” which could be up to $5 billion.

The $14.5 billion inland rail project has been long delayed, with the current iteration being raised in 2006.

There has been a renewed push in recent weeks from some of the Nationals, such as David Littleproud and Susan McDonald, to change the inland rail route between the NSW border and Toowoomba where it crosses the Condamine flood plain.

But Mr Joyce has been seeking to push ahead with the already established route to avoid further delays.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Prime Minister announced the North Queensland Water Infrastructure Authority would finally be relocated to north Queensland, two years after The Courier-Mail revealed the body was run being run by two bureaucrats in Canberra.

“The north Queensland water authority currently based here in Canberra is moving to North Queensland,” he said.

In October last year the NQWIA had one part-time based staff member in Townsville and four in Queensland, with its CEO Richard McLoughlin saying at the time “If we needed more staff in Queensland … I would put on more staff”.

Originally published as Inland Rail route from Toowoomba to Gladstone gets $10 million business case support