Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to support the member for Cowper in this debate on the freight rail network, which I believe is one of the most important issues in Australian transport today. We have to get used to a few facts of life. One of them is that we have a very poor rail system by international standards, and we are a country that could benefit from a really good one.

Although various experts will disagree with what are the exact time frames, it would be fair to say that by the year 2020 the freight task on road will have doubled. By the year 2030 it will have trebled. The problems we are seeing on routes like the Pacific Highway and at the entry to ports around Australia are going to magnify time and time again. Equally, we are falling behind in freighting. Despite the fact that the federal government is spending $2.4 billion upgrading the main trunk systems of rail, and despite the fact that 81 per cent of the freight between Perth and Sydney and 81 per cent of that between Perth and Melbourne is carried by rail, between Melbourne and Sydney rail freight is only 12 per cent and between Sydney and Brisbane it is only 19 per cent. If you take a theoretical direct line from Melbourne to Brisbane, although no direct line exists, it is 21 per cent.

On the best estimates, that is not going to improve beyond about 30 to 35 per cent. So we know that, through the most productive part of Australia and in linking up the major capitals of this country, we are going to have a problem in the very near future. I am pleased to see my colleagues who have been here today: the members for Shortland and Cunningham, both of whom have been great supporters of mine on the Standing Committee on Transport and Regional Services, which they spoke about, and the member for Cowper, as Cowper arguably has the worst road problems of any electorate in Australia.

While we were taking evidence in Sydney recently, Vince O’Rourke, who is arguably the best railway man in Australia, having held distinguished positions in both New South Wales and Queensland Rail, said this:

We are suggesting that we should build a modern railway line between Melbourne and Brisbane on the shortest corridor of about 1,600 kilometres to 1,650 kilometre west of the Great Dividing Range on the flat country with very low gradients, that it should cater for high speed freight trains up to 160 kilometres per hour and double-stack trains travelling at about 120 kilometres per hour.

The argument Mr O’Rourke put to us was that every time we fix up rail in Australia it is incremental. We patch up a bit of Sydney, we put in a temporary freight corridor and eventually it is taken over by a suburban line. We do this in all the capitals. We fix up a grain line from 40 kilometres up to 60 or 70 kilometres. But we are always acting incrementally. We are not going to the heart of the problem. He said, ‘Just for once, let’s build one to the highest international standards.’ He admitted that he was part of the GATR group. Another group also has a very fine proposal before government at present, in the report that has recently gone to Minister Truss—that is, ATEC. Both of those proposals illustrate the urgent need for a good rail system in this country.

Recently, the Gladstone Observer, which is one of my local newspapers, reported delays in loading coal at the Central Queensland Port Authority that cost mining companies such as Felix Resource, Xstrata, Rio Tinto and Wesfarmers millions of dollars. In the past six months, Felix Resources alone have incurred demurrage fees of more than $5 million, primarily as a result of port congestion. Company CEO Brian Flannery is on the record as saying that it is not just a matter of outdated port infrastructure but that Queensland Rail’s connectivity with the Port of Gladstone is also causing problems.

The point I am making is not a crack at the port authority in Gladstone—it is a very good port—but rather that all across Australia we have to improve our rail systems, our arterial rail systems and our connectivity to the ports. We have to get a culture of rail that removes a goodly portion of Australia’s freight task from road to rail. In that way, it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy that rail will become better and better. But we must make this first stance. I support the motion.

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