Tuesday’s federal budget confirmed a wide program of planned road spending, but rail industry leaders say there was very little left over for them.
While total expenditure for rail will increase in both the 2016 and 2017 financial years, the Australasian Railway Association (ARA) considers this a “funding cliff”, with rail investment falling away substantially in the remaining two years of the budget forecast.
Interim chairman Bob Herbert says key rail projects will then fall off the policy agenda, as Australia’s cities and freight task continue to grow.
“Federal contributions to state government rail projects have effectively halved between this budget and the last, making up less than five per cent of the $8.6 billion infrastructure spend in 2015-16,” he says.
“The Federal Government’s continued approach of prioritising roads over rail will not address the long term transport needs of our growing cities.”
In one instance, funding originally earmarked for the Regional Rail Link in Victoria had been reallocated to improving highway infrastructure in the same area. Herbert says this will give even greater competitive advantage to road transport operators over the rail alternative.
One line item that is getting a significant degree of federal support is the Inland Rail project that will see an alternative rail route between Melbourne and Brisbane. Chair of the project’s implementation group (and former transport minister) John Anderson says the government has committed $300 million for pre-construction work, including $100 million in the next financial year.
That will allow the group to develop a concrete delivery plan ahead of construction.
“While additional funds will be required for further development and construction, they are not required immediately,” Anderson says. “There are sufficient funds presently available for the pre-construction work to continue, which is being ably led by the Australian Rail Track Corporation on the government’s behalf.”
Herbert says the ARA had hoped for a clearer funding commitment into the construction phase of the Inland Rail project, and will now lobby for that to be included in next year’s federal budget.
“Inland Rail was a key priority for the industry,” he says. “We are hoping for a stronger, clearer and more significant long-term funding commitment to Inland Rail from the 2016/17 budget.”