Inland Railway and the politics of disaaster

It has always been possible to run freight trains from Melbourne to North Star, which is north of Moree. All that is needed is to build a 300k standard gauge railway on from there to Toowoomba which can act as a freight hub for the whole of South East Queensland without the track going any further. It can also send airfreight from Toowoomba's International Airport.

All that is needed is three billion dollars in tax payer funding. This would make it possible for revenue generating freight trains to run from Melbourne to Toowoomba and return, many years ahead of the current plans.

All of the creation of short cuts and upgrading in NSW could then be progressively implemented in the years ahead with small but regular doses of taxpayer funding annually.

The proposed highly expensive track from Toowoomba to Brisbane will never be needed as it is a better strategy to build the Inland Railway on to Gladstone and open up a huge regional development opportunity on the Darling Downs, Maranoa and Central Queensland.

But, negotiations between the Morrison and Palaszczuk Governments have broken down over the cancellation of promised federal funding for Brisbane's Cross River Rail by Abbott 6 years ago. It would have been built and operating by now if Abbott had not done this.

So, Palaszczuk now makes a fair comment to Morrison, 'You restore the Cross River Rail money and we will let the Inland Railway into Queensland.'

Who can blame her? But I am sure that Albo will fix it when he becomes Infrastructure Minister in May.

In the meantime, the current Infrastructure Minister, McCormack, is spending 300 million dollars unnecessarily upgrading the rail track from Parkes to Narromine which is in his own electorate. He had earlier announced, at a sod turning ceremony beside a rail track that has been there for 150 years, that it would cost 160 million.

It will not cause even one more freight train to appear on the line to North Star and so it is an utter waste of public funds that will send that massive overdraft soaring higher.

In addition, farmers between Narromine and Narrabri are in uproar over the proposed short cut rail track which is next on McCormack's list for the Inland Railway. Negotiations for resumption of their land have been brutal, so 300 of them abused him mightily at a recent public meeting and there is some evidence that Barnaby, who wants his old job back, helped organise the protest.

There is a similar uproar among the farmers around Millmerran in Queensland. The public relations skills of ARTC are totally missing.

The best that can be said today is that the creation of the Inland Railway, a great national development project, is in the hands of gross political and bureaucratic incompetents who have turned it into an unbelievable farce at huge cost to the nation.

When the government changes in May, I will offer my services to Anthony Albanese to help sort out this almost hopeless mess as he will inherit a terrible legacy.

I do hope that he accepts as I want a chance to revive my persistent record of working tirelessly for its creation for 23 long years.

It must not be destroyed by irresponsible vandalism.