Image – Member for Parkes, Jamie Chaffey, with Moree Plains Shire Mayor, Cr Susannah Pearse
Federal Nationals Member for Parkes, Jamie Chaffey, says the Albanese Government has killed a project critical to the development of Australia's sustainability and sovereignty with its axing of the Inland Rail project north of Parkes.
Mr Chaffey says the decision is a huge betrayal of regional Australia.
"It throws away the $3.5 billion already spent on this critical project which is approximately 17% complete. Conservative estimates put the pre-construction sunk cost north of Parkes alone at $500 million to $1 billion - every dollar unrecoverable.
"More than 160km of upgraded track between Narrabri and North Star - which has been completed and operational since 2023 - is now a spur to nowhere, disconnected at both ends and generating no commercial value.
"Labor has said this is a financial decision, but the cost of this project that has been in the pipeline for 100 years will only skyrocket in the century ahead. Now 200,000 truck movements each year are locked onto regional roads, and we are looking at no significant further capacity to grow our country's productivity.
"That money is yet more funding ripped out of regional Australia to go to metropolitan areas.
"In 2011, Albanese called this project 'central' to lifting Australia's productivity. Now, he is abandoning it and abandoning regional Australia."
By cancelling Inland Rail north of Parkes, Labor is:
• Writing off $3-3.5 billion already spent
• Stranding 163km of upgraded track between Narrabri and North Star
• Destroying CSIRO-verified freight savings of $64-$94 per tonne for agricultural producers. Farmers from Parkes to Narrabri and Moree will continue paying road freight rates rather than accessing competitive rail costs that would have made Australian agricultural exports more competitive globally
• Locking 200,000 truck movements per year onto regional roads - accelerating the degradation of highways and local roads that cash-strapped regional councils cannot afford to repair
• Abandoning 750,000 tonnes of annual carbon emission savings - at a time when the Government claims to prioritise decarbonisation
• Betraying regional property and business owners and community members whose lives, properties and businesses have been in limbo over this project since Labor came to power
• Triggering contract termination liabilities and stranded private sector investment, while sending a sovereign risk chill through Australia's entire $270 billion national infrastructure pipeline - no long-term project is safe from Labor's party politics
• Robbing regional communities along the corridor of thousands of dollars' worth of construction and permanent jobs and the long-term economic stimulus that investment in regional freight infrastructure generates.
"We demand a full public accounting of every dollar wasted on this cancellation, including sunk costs, termination payments, and stranded asset write-offs," Mr Chaffey said.
"My National Party colleagues and I will continue to push for this project in the Coalition Party Room, and continue this fight with the Government to make sure we get this project back on track. Regional Australia deserves a government that keeps its word."
