Taxpayers slogged extra $2.4 billion for flagship train manufacturing

Costs on the government’s flagship train program have blown out by a sum equivalent to ten Wellcamp quarantine facilities, with accusations they attempted to hide the huge cost from taxpayers.

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Queenslanders will be slugged a whopping $2.4bn extra for a flagship state government train manufacturing program, with the eye-watering sum quietly updated on the state’s Transport and Main Roads website.

The shock increase comes just two weeks ago Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced company Downer had signed a $4.6bn contract within the $7.1bn Queensland Train Manufacturing Program, which would see 65 new trains built in Maryborough.

But since that announcement the transport department has updated their website to reflect the cost of the program has now skyrocketed to $9.5bn – an increase of more than 33 per cent.

The $2.4bn increase is more than the government’s housing investment fund, the cost of more than ten Wellcamp quarantine facilities, or almost the entire funding allocated to the Gabba redevelopment.

Workers inside the Downer Rail Manufacturing facility at Maryborough during the state governments announcement to deliver the new train program. Picture: Lachie Millard

Asked about why Queenslanders were now paying $9.5bn for the program which had been heavily spruiked as a $7.1bn project since at least 2021, Transport Minister Mark Bailey said the new figure included “options for a further twenty years (to 2058) of operational costs”.

The LNP accused the government of quietly handing over an additional $2.4bn without informing taxpayers of the mammoth increase – and slammed the 33 per cent jump as “inexplicable”.

“In the middle of the Queensland housing crisis, this wasted $2.4 billion could have doubled the Housing Investment Fund to provide homes for Queenslanders in need,” LNP Deputy Leader Jarrod Bleijie said.

“The Palaszczuk Government is so nonchalant about project overruns that, alarmingly, this $2.4 billion didn’t even warrant an update from the Minister.

“With cost-of-living pressures mounting, Queenslanders can’t afford a government continually asking for more money, only to waste it through mismanagement.”

Downer Train Designer Marcela Fantucci Scacchetti takes a selfie with the Premier at the Downer Rail Manufacturing facility at Maryborough. Picture: Lachie Millard

A TMR spokesman said the “$9.5 billion program budget will be largely reinvested directly back into Queensland, with Downer making guarantees for the extensive use of local suppliers”.

“QTMP will also significantly improve the manufacturing industry in Queensland, and will support more than 1,300 jobs for Queenslanders,” he said.

TMR said as well as a further 20 years of operation and maintenance, there had also been “external labour and commodity escalations, and additional train stabling and a 10-kilometre test track”.

Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey. Picture: Blair Jackson

The Premier took a huge chunk of her cabinet including Mr Bailey, Treasurer Cameron Dick, Deputy Premier Steven Miles and Manufacturing Minister Glenn Butcher to Maryborough in February to spruik the then-$7.1bn investment, saying it would deliver 800 new jobs over the next decade.

But the government has faced previous questions over the program with the first trains not set to be delivered until 2026 – a year after the mega project Cross River Rail was due to open – with all new trains set to be in service by 2032.

LNP transport spokesman Steve Minnikin said “Queenslanders haven’t forgotten the Government has repeatedly told us the trains were essential to deliver the extra train services that would come online when Cross River Rail opens”.

“Instead of the ‘more trains, more often’ that we were promised, the only thing this government can deliver is more chaos and more crisis,” he said.

Originally published as Taxpayers slogged extra $2.4 billion for flagship train manufacturing