AIN’T IT A DAM SHAME
Budget takes razor to road, rail and other vital projects
MEGA projects once slated for Queensland including dams, roads and rail have been ditched or delayed amid the federal government’s brutal redirection of billions of infrastructure dollars in the budget.
And the future of other critical infrastructure hangs in the air, with no clarity provided within the budget or by bureaucrats.
Infrastructure Minister Catherine King was scheduled to write to her state and territory counterparts on Tuesday night outlining which projects had been felled by Labor’s razor gang, which had been deferred indefinitely, and which were safe.
Millions have been allocated to new commitments, particularly for manufacturing, hydrogen and infrastructure projects in Townsville and Cairns.
The government had warned, in the lead-up to the budget, that nearly $22bn of spending previously earmarked by the Coalition for infrastructure projects, external labour, grants, advertising, legal and travel expenditure had been repurposed.
But the true extent of infrastructure cash “re-profiling” was revealed when Queensland’s own Jim Chalmers handed down the budget on Tuesday night.
Victims of Labor’s budget razor gang include the Hells Gate Dam project, which has had its $5.4bn in promised funding axed as expected.
The $483m allocated to the Urannah Dam proposal west of Mackay has also been ditched, however the critical $600m needed to restore Paradise Dam near Bundaberg to its original 300 gigalitre capacity was untouched.
Two major rail projects – the $1.6bn Sunshine Coast rail extension and the $1.1bn Kuraby to Beenleigh Faster Rail upgrade – were not mentioned in the budget.
But Treasury bureaucrats said the project remained in the budget, though no further detail has been provided.
Rail investment funding allocated to Queensland into 2025/26 is $300m less than it was in the March budget.
The Hughenden Irrigation Project, a dam in Queensland’s midwest which promised to open up land for agriculture, has had its promised funding “deferred” – with money to be “reconsidered once business cases are completed and viable pathways to delivery are determined and assessed”.
The Emu Swamp Dam and pipeline, which had been promised $126.5m, shared the same fate.
Election commitments funded include $200m to expand the Cairns Marine Precinct and build a Central Queensland University campus in the far north Queensland city’s CBD.