Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the amendments moved by the member for Maranoa. I'm a firm believer in high-speed rail and its transformational impact on rural and regional Australia, particularly the potential for my region of Nicholls. We often talk about the need for high-speed rail, and we say it's a connector between capital cities in different states. But I think it's important to understand there's also the opportunity to use high-speed rail to connect regional cities and capital cities within states. Such a proposal already exists, developed by the Rail Futures Institute, and I commend their report about making Victoria a state of cities, not a city-state, to anyone who's interested in the topic.

If we don't want Australia to be a nation of megacities, we need to face up to the challenge of growing our regional cities. High-speed rail can drive not only shifts in population but access to work, education and health care. In the case of Victoria, there is an opportunity to leverage a properly built airport rail link not only to connect passengers to planes but also to be a conduit for electrified high-speed trains from regional centres in the north into Melbourne. Instead, I believe we're squandering billions on the Victorian government's suburban rail loop, a thought bubble project that the Victorian Auditor-General concluded has not been properly assessed.

It makes sense that the High Speed Rail Authority have at least one voice from regional Australia. You can't build a rail line between capital cities without running the track through regional areas, but we should aspire to do much more than that. We need high-speed rail to be a driver for regional populations and economies. It is important that those regional and rural Australians who will be impacted and who can also benefit enormously have a voice. The transparency and accountability measures proposed by the Leader of the Nationals are equally sensible. Economic assessments and cost-benefit analysis undertaken by the Productivity Commission and Infrastructure Australia will better inform all Australians.

High-speed rail has been talked about for a long time. It can be transformational, but it will also be expensive. We need to understand whether the cost-benefit equation stacks up. As such, I support the amendments moved by the Leader of the Nationals.

See this speech in context