Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Governments of all persuasions are presented with private sector proposals of a good deal on a regular basis. Not every deal that comes from the private sector that is put to you as a government is indeed on closer scrutiny necessarily a good deal for the taxpayer. The government has—and this is a matter on the public record for some time now—gone through a robust market-testing exercise where all potential private sector partners in delivering the inland rail were able to put their proposals forward so that they could be properly tested and scrutinised. What we have done here in the context of the inland rail project, with an $8.4 billion equity injection through the Australian Rail Track Corporation and assuming that there will be further private sector investment to complement that as well as ARTC borrowings to deliver the full project cost, is based on the advice that came out of the market-testing process. (Time expired)