The Gold Coast Bulletin

Private funds to get rail moving

- JESSICA MARSZALEK AND STEVEN WARDILL

THE private sector has been called in to help build the Brisbane Cross River Rail project and stop the State Government’s $5.4 billion costing blowing out, in a scheme modelled on how the Gold Coast light rail was funded.

Infrastruc­ture Minister Jackie Trad yesterday announced the 5.9km of tunnelling, four undergroun­d stations and developmen­t work – about half the cost of the project – would be handled under a public-private partnershi­p.

But Ms Trad struggled to explain the full benefits of the arrangemen­t to taxpayers, as most of her 15-minute press conference was hijacked by an anti-Adani protester shouting.

Waving a $5000 wad of cash, Galilee Blockade activist and former Greens mayoral candidate Ben Pennings asked for a cash-for-access meeting with Ms Trad and ranted about Adani lobbyist Cameron Milner volunteeri­ng for the ALP at the upcoming election.

After being accused of being interested only in greens issues that came in the form of green $100 bills, an irritated Ms Trad eventually responded with: “I think that’s actually quite abhorrent. It’s quite clear there are sectors in the political spectrum who are trying to vie for relevance.”

Mr Pennings was eventually ejected by police after the press conference had ended.

Asked whether the PPP would save taxpayers from forking out the full $5.4 billion cost, Ms Trad said they would still pay the full amount.

“What we actually do is we manage to share the risk in terms of delivering the project and also delivering the quite tricky elements of the project ... tunnelling particular­ly,” she said. “We want to make sure that, in terms of the delivery, it’s as efficient and cost-effective as possible.”

Ms Trad said it would be a similar model to how the Gold Coast light rail was delivered.

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