Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have long argued in this place that, with the Moorebank intermodal, and the idea of shuttling containers from Port Botany out to Moorebank on rail and distributing them from there is destined to become a white elephant. It is a classic case of a planning fallacy.

Finally, we see the market is starting to agree with me. Back in August, Aurizon, which owned one-third of that project, decided it was time to pull up stumps and abandon it. Last month, we had the private US equity firm Carlyle Group sell their $350 million worth of shares in Qube. Only a few weeks ago, we had the announcement that the Asia Australia Consortium, which has about 250,000 containers annually, has abandoned Qube. This project will not work. An Australian Financial Review analyst has said:

None of the potential customers I have talked to have indicated they are going to be moving quickly to Moorebank.

The writing is on the wall. This reminds me of the case of the emperor's new clothes—everyone says it is fantastic, but the reality is starting to hit. It is time for both the government and the private sector to— (Time expired)