Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this morning to commend Everald Compton, who has had the great vision of building an inland rail link from Melbourne to Queensland and right through to Darwin. I commend him for his work and his persistence. It is a vision that I share. We have had great news this week. I should say that Everald has had great news and, obviously, as the member for Maranoa, I have had great news, because only this week the inland rail consortium have had a signed mandate with the Queensland state government which will allow the first stage of that great vision to be built—the railway line between Toowoomba and Gladstone.

This is an important rail link because it will mean that the Surat coal basin will now be able to be developed. In fact, the resources of the Surat coal basin are equal to, if not greater than, those of the Bowen coal basin, and we know what that means in terms of resource wealth for our country.

This railway line will source private finance. If there is a request to the federal government under AusLink for some financial support, I will be the first in the Prime Minister’s door to make sure that we support this proposal. What this railway line will do for the small communities along the Darling Downs—the Dalbys, the Chinchillas, the Mileses, the Wandoans and the Tarooms—is that it will provide the missing link between Wandoan and Theodore, and its effect will be quite astronomical. It will change the face of those communities.

We have seen a steady drift of population from the Darling Downs and the pastoral and regional communities of western Queensland over many years, mainly linked to the structural adjustment that has occurred in the agricultural sector over the last 50 years. So this is really great news. It will inject new life into the Darling Downs. It will change the face of the electorate in that part of Queensland, and it is something that is welcomed by all of us.

One of the important points is that there will be a massive injection of capital for the construction and upgrade of the railway line in this part of Queensland. It has to be up and running within five short years. So it will bring a lot of capital and a lot of new jobs into the community. It will also put enormous pressure on the Warrego Highway. With the recent construction of a baseload power station at Chinchilla, there were something like 11,000 heavy vehicles transporting the equipment, the steel and all the construction material required to build that power station. That figure will pale when you consider what will be required to build this railway line.

I commend Everald Compton and his group. I certainly support it. It is great news which has come out before Christmas, and it is great to think that the Queensland state government have signed that mandate with the inland rail group. (Time expired).