STEVE AUSTIN, ABC BRISBANE HOST: Catherine King is the Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. I spoke to her a short while ago and asked her why she's killed the [Inland Rail] project.

MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT CATHERINE KING: Well, when we came to Government, we obviously inherited an Inland Rail project that had been underfunded and under-planned. The first thing the board, then of the Australian Rail Track Corporation who was building Inland Rail at the time, came to me and said, this is going to need a lot more money. And when I asked how much, they were unable to tell me. We then got Kerry Schott to come in and do a big review of the project. She again looked at the costings of the project, and said she could, with no assurance, tell us it was probably going to cost another $31 billion to get it all the way, not to Port of Brisbane, but into Queensland, and that we needed to do some work to find out exactly how much it would cost. So we've been prioritising all of the works to get it to Parkes by 2027. That work has been going ahead, and the Inland Rail has been doing a very good job building that. We've now had the actuarial work done to the costings, and it will cost an additional $45 billion to build. That money has not been provisioned for, had not been provisioned for by the previous Government, at all, to build Inland Rail. It's now three times the cost that it was originally touted to be. And in addition to that, it's hit its ceiling for equity funding. It's, to date, it's been funded off equity, so off budget. This would actually hit the budget as well. So we'd have to basically wind back a range and other projects, or find money from other areas in order to fund it. 

AUSTIN: So when the project was, I'm sorry, I'll cut you off. Did you want to finish?

KING: No, you're fine.

AUSTIN: Well when the project was first raised, and years back now, the whole point was to connect the Port of Melbourne with the Port of Brisbane. The advantage for Queensland was it would take thousands of trucks off the roads, off the streets in Brisbane, and make it easier to export and move freight around in Australia. The Government, essentially for financial reasons, abandoned that idea. 

KING: Well, it was always a myth that it was going to get into the Port of Melbourne or the Port of Brisbane. There were absolutely no plans to do that without substantial costs and pain, trying to get double stacked trains through Acacia Ridge. There was no plan at all, when we come to Government, to actually get it through to either of the ports. This project was poorly planned, was started without having any idea how it was to get into the Port of Melbourne and how it was getting to get into the Port of Brisbane. 

AUSTIN: Does that lay at the feet of Barnaby Joyce when he was the Deputy Prime Minister at the time? 

KING: Well, I think, absolutely. I think the National Party should be hanging their heads in shame in terms of the way they managed this project. It's an example of what not to do when you're building large scale, complex infrastructure projects. This is the biggest project of its scale anywhere in the country, and it was not planned. And so we're actually having to really try and clean up this project. So what getting it to Parkes does, is it allows east-west, and to get freight over to Perth. But also now investing more into the existing rail freight network, and that includes through Queensland. We will be investments in the existing track through Queensland to improve its productivity. 

AUSTIN: So just explain that to me. So this is the coastal track. Is it the under-utilised, under-maintained coastal track that you're referring to? 

KING: Yeah, so we've got, with Australian rail track Corporation, over 150 years of rail that we do deliver freight on currently, and that has had minimal investment over a number of years now. And so what we are doing is redirecting some of the equity from Inland Rail to actually getting those freight routes more resilient. They've been down several times, whether it's been due to flooding or signalling failure, because it's just aging equipment. So we're investing in this budget, $1.75 billion, on top of the billion dollars we've already invested, to really build resilience into the existing freight network, as well as spending $55 million to incentivise freight onto rail. And that's been something that the freight operators have actually been asking for. Some incentives to do that, plus actually trying to invest in the resilience of the existing network. We'll do the work to gazette and preserve the land for the remainder of Inland Rail. We will gazette and look at the opportunities for the intermodal hubs through Gowrie, Ebenezer and through Parkes. So we'll do that preservation work. 

AUSTIN: What does that mean? Explain, demystify that for me, what does that mean? 

KING: So basically, it's gazetting it as a route for future Inland Rail. 

AUSTIN: So one day in the future maybe?

KING: So yeah, and again, what the actuarial work has shown is that not only would it cost an additional $45 billion on budget, it would not be finished until 2036. So what we're trying to do now is really build resilience into the existing network, which has been severely neglected, which has been down for long, long periods of time, and to actually really get more freight on rail, and really consolidate this project so it does start to actually be utilised and deliver that promise. 

AUSTIN: My guest is the Federal Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Catherine King. One of the original benefits, if you like, for the people of Brisbane of Inland Rail was the argument that it would take thousands of trucks off our suburban streets. Brisbane has major traffic problems because of growth now, but the the other part of that was that there are heavy trucks, all through the suburban roads of Brisbane. And the big benefit, or the claimed benefit, was that this Inland Rail through to Brisbane at some point, whether it be Acacia Ridge or the port, would be it would be reduced, get all those trucks off the roads. Now this looks like we'll have all those trucks on our roads in the Brisbane City area?

KING: Well, that's why we're investing $55 million to incentivise getting more freight on rail. That's part of the Budget, and why we're investing in existing rail track to try and actually get more freight onto rail now. But as I said at the start, when you look at this project, there are a lot of promises made, but not a lot of delivery. And we've got to be practical about how do you deliver things? And unfortunately, the previous Government did not fund this project and did not have any plan as to how they were going to get any of those trucks off Brisbane roads. You were sold a bit of a false promise there unfortunately.

AUSTIN: What has the Port of Brisbane said to you, when you told them? Anything?

KING: I haven't spoken directly to the Port of Brisbane, but they've been well aware all the way along that getting Inland Rail to the Port of Brisbane has been a significant challenge for the project. I think there wasn't anyone through Acacia Ridge who was going to let us do double stack trains or various options that were being provided to us. At most, we would have got it through to Gowrie and to Ebenezer. But again, the costs of that, simply in terms of when you weigh up what we've got before us, at the moment, I think that's really just not feasible. 

AUSTIN: Minister Catherine King, thanks for your time. 

KING: Good to be with you Steve.