Building a plan to get back on track

MORE money is being thrown at a $10 billion interstate freight rail project to speed up construction, but exactly where it will track across Queensland is yet to be worked out.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday announced $1.5 billion to fast-track work on “shovel-ready” projects to help recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

Some of that money will go towards the interstate inland rail project, which is federally funded and under construction in some sections.

The Queensland Government has backed the project, saying it has the potential to support thousands of jobs during construction, particularly in the state’s southwest.

“We want to see those jobs created sooner, but the Federal Government needs to resolve issues raised along the route, including by its own LNP MPs who have been calling for a review of the route,” state Transport Minister Mark Bailey said.

Work is already under way on parts of the line in New South Wales but it’s being held up in Queensland, where there is disagreement over the route it will take.

The line was initially drawn over the notorious Condamine flood plain, but farmers and residents from the Darling Downs region said a plan to build it on a levy bank would prove problematic.

They said culverts in the levy would become blocked by farmland debris, resulting in water building up and completely submerging the flood plain. Those concerns sent government MPs, engineers and planners back to the drawing board.

Addressing the Committee for Economic Development of Australia’s State of the Nation forum yesterday, Mr Morrison fleshed out his plans for boosting economic growth, including the $1.5 billion in spending

WE ARE DETERMINED THOUGH TO GET OUT OF THE WAY AND SPEED UP PROGRESS BY IMPROVING APPROVALS PROCESSES

SCOTT MORRISON

and pushing for more deregulation.

“We are determined though to get out of the way and speed up progress by improving approvals processes,” he told the forum.

National cabinet has already been discussing how to move to “single-touch approvals” that could combine Commonwealth and state-level environmental processes.

Mr Morrison says joint assessment teams will work on accelerating 15 priority infrastructure projects worth more than $72 billion in public and private investment, and supporting more than 66,000 direct and indirect jobs.