The vision of the inland railway is now a tragedy

Now to the current situation.

In my original plan, which I still promote from the sidelines, the railway did not go to Brisbane. It went from Melbourne via Parkes and Goondiwindi to Toowoomba which was planned to become the major freight centre for all of South East Queensland.

The railway would then take an Inland route to the Port of Gladstone which would become Eastern Australia's major port for rural exports. From there it would then go on to Emerald and across country to Darwin via Cloncurry.

Let us now be indelibly clear on one crucial factor.

This railway will never ever go to Brisbane.

The cost of traversing three ranges and finding a pathway to the Port of Brisbane through densely populated suburbs is financially outrageous and social unacceptable. If it is persevered with, there will be blood in the streets.

Having said this, I openly acknowledge that in building the railway from Melbourne to Toowoomba, there are many property owners who will be hurt unless their situation is handled sensibly and honestly on both sides.

Unfortunately, the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC), whom the Federal Government commissioned to build the Inland Railway without a competitive tendering process, has been extraordinarily and unnecessarily callous and unreasonable in dealing with property owners in the path of the railway and deserves public censure.

When I was Chairman of the Surat Basin Railway, I negotiated corridor purchase agreements with 120 landowners located between Wandoan and Banana where the missing link of the proposed Gladstone Railway would be built. Because we sat down with each one and discussed the impact on them, and being willing to move the corridor reasonably so as to minimise their inconvenience, we signed up every one of them. Not one dissenting voice.

REPORT THIS AD REPORT THIS AD

Then, the Newman Government in Queensland dismissed us without compensation because they found a Chinese Rail Company that offered to pay them for the right to build and own the track. Subsequently, the China guys disappeared without trace. So did Newman. The project died.

This tells us that our governments in Australia, no matter what their political colour, have been in steady decline since the grand pioneering days of Federation in 1901.