Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister. I appreciate that that is contained in the budget. But if you have a look at what is required to achieve the outcomes that are sought for that project, it requires significant realignment and re-engineering of the existing corridor. In order to achieve capacity for higher speeds in our trains, the radius of the curves need to be far flatter. You can't have tight curves—that impacts the speed outcomes for the trains. That comes at an enormous cost, because a large number of resumptions are required along that corridor because it's highly developed. The corridor south of Beenleigh to the Gold Coast is relatively straightforward. It's pretty straight, so the trains can travel at or near their maximum speed.

Looking at that corridor between Newcastle and Sydney, I thank the same issue applies as the issue I raised with the Brisbane line north to Rockhampton on which the Tilt Train runs. I would argue that there is much work that could be done on that corridor in terms of straightening alignments and improving the existing alignment. That can significantly increase the speeds. It would be interesting to see what the cost of that would be, ultimately. I know that when we were in government we committed $1 billion to that potential upgrade.

I would argue that rail is critically important and will remain critically important. It goes an enormous way to reducing congestion on our roads, because we know that trains are the most efficient way to move large numbers of people quickly. So the question becomes how, through high-speed rail or even faster rail, we achieve those efficiencies and ensure—given the costs involved today in building these pieces of infrastructure, as we are seeing with the cost of Inland Rail—that the cost of tickets on those trains is affordable for commuters to use them on a regular basis to commute to and from work and other places.

I support the creation of this High-Speed Rail Authority. As I said, there has been much work done over the years. I would not like to see it become another government body that does an enormous amount of good work, as I said earlier, but doesn't achieve any practical outcomes at the end of the day, where we don't see the delivery of, at least as a starting point, faster rail in our capital cities and in our large urban areas—as opposed to high-speed rail, because there is a significant step up and differential cost between fast rail and high-speed rail. I think that if we can achieve high-quality fast rail, in the first instance, to improve the quality and timeliness of our existing services, then ultimately, maybe, at some point down the track, that leads us to introduce high-speed rail.

As I've said, I'm pleased to see that the government is building on the enormous amount of work we did in the rail space when we were in government, and I'm sure that as an opposition we'll continue to work with the government to see these outcomes realised.

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