{"id":5168,"date":"2026-05-05T12:04:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T12:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/5168\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T12:04:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T12:04:28","slug":"albanese-government-axes-funding-for-45-billion-inland-rail-project-linking-melbourne-to-brisbane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/5168\/","title":{"rendered":"Albanese government axes funding for $45 billion Inland Rail project linking Melbourne to Brisbane"},"content":{"rendered":"

The federal government has halted plans for the Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail, amid concerns the project could cost more than $45 billion to complete.<\/p>\n

Spanning 1,600 kilometres, the new freight corridor was to be the Commonwealth’s biggest rail project in a century, and promised to deliver faster, more resilient freight; resulting in safer roads and less emissions.<\/p>\n

But today the government revealed it has axed funding for the project beyond the regional New South Wales town of Parkes.<\/p>\n

\"Brisbane<\/p>\n

The Inland Rail project’s original route from Melbourne to Brisbane.<\/p>\n

Construction between the Victorian town of Beveridge and Parkes will be completed by the end of next year, through the reallocation of $1.75 billion in previously announced “off-budget” funding.<\/p>\n

This will enable double-stacked freight trains to travel between Melbourne and Perth via Parkes.<\/p>\n

Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said the government was “taking sensible decisions to realign the future of Inland Rail and build a safe, efficient and reliable network for the future”.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Ms King described Inland Rail as a “really significant project that the Australian Government is very proud to be delivering for the Australian people”.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Catherine King has previously described the project as “really significant”.\u00a0 (ABC News: Ian Cutmore)<\/p>\n

Both Labor and the Coalition went into the 2013 federal election with $300 million pledges to kick-start Inland Rail, with the funding commitment ultimately coming from a victorious Abbott government.<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2017, the Morrison government made a $8.4 billion off-budget investment<\/a> in the government-owned Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) to deliver Inland Rail.<\/p>\n

Ms King said ARTC had seen “decades of underinvestment” by the former Coalition government.<\/p>\n

Project cost estimate triples<\/p>\n

Ms King said an independent assessment of Inland Rail conducted by ACIL Allen estimated the cost of delivering the project in full now exceeded $45 billion \u2014 more than three times the current budget allocation.<\/p>\n

The economic advisory firm’s assessment also found the project cannot be delivered until 2036, at the earliest.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, ARTC estimated the cost of the project had jumped to $31 billion.<\/p>\n

Experienced public service executive Kerry Schott cast doubt on ARTC’s cost estimate in her 2023 independent review of Inland Rail<\/a>, saying it “should not be accepted by the shareholder”.<\/p>\n

\"Schott<\/p>\n

Kerry Schott has previously raised concerns about the project’s scope and delivery costs.\u00a0 (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

“There is insufficient certainty about the scope, the related schedule, and delivery costs to have any confidence in the numbers,” she wrote.<\/p>\n

In the wake of Ms Schott’s 2023 review, retired corporate fundraiser and so-called father of Inland Rail, Everald Compton, called for a shorter freight line,<\/a> terminating at Toowoomba.<\/p>\n

“It will never get to Brisbane,” Mr Compton told ABC’s 7.30 at the time.<\/p>\n

“I reckon hell will freeze over quicker than this railway gets to Brisbane.”\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Everald Compton cast doubt over the rail making it all the way to Brisbane.\u00a0 (Supplied: Everald Compton)<\/p>\n

New chair, CEO to oversee ‘refocused’ Inland Rail<\/p>\n

It is unclear how many jobs will be impacted by the government’s decision to stop the line at Parkes.<\/p>\n

But the revised direction of the project will be led by newly-appointed chair Collette Burke and chief executive Sean Sweeney.<\/p>\n

Ms Burke most recently served as interim chair for Inland Rail, while Mr Sweeney comes from recent roles at MetroLink in Dublin, and City Rail Link in Auckland.<\/p>\n

Ms King said the appointments “reinforce” the government’s commitment to “strong governance and clear accountability” for Inland Rail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal government has halted plans for the Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail, amid concerns the project could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1869,483,99,3220,1861,6438,6437,6435,156,6441,489,212,6436,6439,6440,6055,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-5168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brisbane","8":"tag-albanese","9":"tag-anthony-albanese","10":"tag-brisbane","11":"tag-budget","12":"tag-federal-budget","13":"tag-freight-line","14":"tag-freight-train","15":"tag-inland-rail","16":"tag-labor","17":"tag-melbourne-to-brisbane","18":"tag-prime-minister","19":"tag-queensland","20":"tag-rail","21":"tag-rail-link","22":"tag-rail-transport","23":"tag-train-line","24":"tag-victoria"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}