TRANSCRIPT: INTERVIEW WITH CONOR BURKE, ABC RIVERINA, 4 MARCH 2024

Subjects: Inland Rail

 E&OE 

STARTS: 12.30pm

 CONOR BURKE

If you wouldn’t mind just, for some level, giving me your full name and title, please.

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Michael McCormack, Federal Member for Riverina.

CONOR BURKE

So, Michael, we’ve seen your colleague up there in the electorate of Parkes, Parkes obviously falls in your electorate, but voicing his disappointment that there is no funding as yet allocated to the Inland Rail project from Parkes to Brisbane. He seems disheartened and is a bit unsure as to whether that leg of the project is going to go ahead. Where are we sitting and what’s the latest?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Well, the Parkes electorate, which Mark Coulton represents, is around about half the landmass of New South Wales. So, a lot of the Inland Rail would have been going through his electorate on its way through Queensland, ultimately to Brisbane. And, of course, the first section of the Inland Rail, Parkes to Narromine, Parkes being the town which I represent in the Riverina electorate, that section has already been completed. There are 13 sections of Inland Rail. Mark Coulton is perturbed by the fact that there are currently no plans to continue work on the Inland Rail through his electorate. I share those concerns. Labor says that it’s committed to Inland Rail, but saying one thing and doing another is sometimes the case with Labor. Under questioning at Senate Estimates, the Australian Rail Track Corporation, which is delivering Inland Rail, conceded that the Government hasn’t provided the funding to deliver the Inland Rail further north of Parkes, you might say, and had been forced to break contracts entered into for sections of Inland Rail on that route up to Brisbane. Now, that is disappointing. We’d like to see the Government be far more committed. They’ve always stated that they are in favour of Inland Rail. Indeed, even at the Local Electorate Forum before the 2022 Election here in Wagga Wagga, the candidate for Labor said that he was totally on board with Inland Rail. And so, it’s up in the air at the moment. I’d like to see the commitment by the Labor Government be backed up with funding — that’s important. I understand and I was very disappointed with the 200-day delay on all the infrastructure projects that was put in place under a 90-day review by Catherine King, the Infrastructure Minister. That did cause a lot of projects, rail and road, to be stalled. What we need to see is things being built. That’s what we did when we were in Government. That’s what this Government should be doing.

CONOR BURKE

So, you mentioned there that review and that looked at Inland Rail and talked about cost blowouts and delays. I’m guessing now breaking contracts is going to further delay this project. Is that going to affect any of the project now coming down into this electorate, the Riverina. Will that cause a bit of concern?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Well, there has been talk around Canberra that the Inland Rail will be Melbourne to Parkes. Now, when you say breaking contracts, what’s happened is some personnel, some key personnel, have gone to seek other ventures because of the delay, the pause, the stall, call it what you like; that’s what Labor did. They put a 200-day delay on all projects of infrastructure and it was supposed to be only 90 days. And so that caused a blowout in times and schedules and a lot of people went to seek other ventures. I get that. But also, this breaching of the contracts is quite disturbing. So, under questioning at Senate Estimates, when ARTC says some contracts have been breached, timelines haven’t been met, that is of great concern. Mark is fearful that the Inland Rail won’t be built through his electorate. I’m fairly confident that Inland Rail will continue through Parkes down to Melbourne. I know, having signed the intergovernmental agreements with the then Transport Minister in Victoria, Jacinta Allen, now Premier, I think those contracts will be honoured by the Federal Government. And, of course, Parkes to Wodonga, that section through Illabo, through Wagga Wagga, through Albury, I’m sure there’s enough work under way at the moment to see that that will be finalised. And, of course, Junee and Wagga Wagga have, you know, their councils are looking at the project very much because when you look at Bomen and the infrastructure money spent there on the Riverina Intermodal Freight and Logistics Hub, there’s too much money to go back on a contract to deliver Inland Rail now because there’s just been too much money invested, tens of millions of dollars of enabling roads. So this is an important project. It’s an important project to get right. It’s incumbent upon this Government to get it right and it’s important that this Government honours the deal that it entered into when it took Government because it said it was in favour of Inland Rail and it needs to show that with money, with funding.

CONOR BURKE

So, you know, you use the term fairly confident there, so I guess there are still no guarantees?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Well, you’re never really confident with this Labor Government because, you know, they said that they would honour all the infrastructure projects, then just prior to the Budget last year put in a 90-day review. That led to a stall of more than 200 days. And there are some projects they’re simply not going ahead with. They’ve not said that they’re not going ahead with Inland Rail, so I’m not going to come out and say “oh yes, I’m absolutely positive that Inland Rail will go ahead”, when you’ve got a Labor Government in Canberra which hasn’t shown the sort of commitment to regional Australia that the former Coalition Government did.

CONOR BURKE

Will it be a success if it does only go from Melbourne to Parkes in the end?

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Well, it’s half doing something. Why do something by half? Why not do it as the project was always put in place, Melbourne to Brisbane? And then, even look at furthering lines and offshoots to Gladstone where you’ve got a very deep harbour. You’ve got an industrial town that is just looking to grow. You’ve got all sorts of investments up through central Queensland that could take advantage of the Inland Rail. Rail is a great environmentally friendly way of taking goods off the road. It protects the roads. It takes the carbon-emitting trucks off the road and puts their goods onto rail. Of course, there’s always going to be room for trucks, of course, to have their place in the transport logistics of this nation. But indeed, when you are looking at Inland Rail and all the things that were put in place when we first funded it many years ago, it still stacks up. It certainly does. And whilst I appreciate you saying cost blowouts, initially it was a laptop exercise. And as we go through the process and as we look at making sure there’s grade separations between road, rail, making sure that we’ve got all the intersections right, those costs do increase. There’s always going to be those contingencies. But overall, it’s a very good project. Labor should get behind it, not just in words but also actions and funding.

ENDS: 12.37pm

Paul Pfitzner