Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

By 2020 the cost estimate had then risen to $16.4 billion, again funded from debt. Of course, when we came to office in 2022, we inherited this project. The first thing that I was told by the Australian Rail Track Corporation, the ARTC, who all of the figures come from, was that the project would need substantially more funding to finish it, but the ARTC could not tell us how much. They did not know how much it would cost. So we commissioned an independent expert to review the project. Dr Schott, when she released her review—the figures were based on those from the ARTC itself—said it looked like it was going to cost an additional $31.4 billion, but she couldn't be sure. So we then got ARTC and then Inland Rail, having accepted all of those recommendations, to have a look at it again, and they said to us very clearly that it is now a $45 billion project. The summary of the ACIL Allen work, if you care to go and have a look, is on my department's website. It will show to you that all of the ARTC estimates say that it is now a $45 billion project.

Frankly, every single one of the people who've been involved in this project should hang their heads in shame. It is a project that, frankly—we will now get to Parkes, which will see us begin to get a return, finally, on our investment. We will never get the money back for Inland Rail. As I'd say in Victoria, you've got more front than Myers to ask that question. (Time expired)

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