Grandfather of Inland Rail won’t let project die
Robyn Wuth |
He’s known as the ‘grandfather’ of Inland Rail.
But after almost 30 years fighting for a freight spine through the heart of Australia, Everald Compton refuses to let his dream die on a rural siding.
The veteran fundraiser says a federal decision to shelve a rail link from Parkes in NSW to Brisbane has shattered regional development plans but he insists the project can be salvaged with private help.
“The Inland Rail concept is not going to die,” Mr Compton tells AAP.
“I’m not in the business of fighting governments, I’m in the business of building railways.”
The flagship Beveridge‑to‑Kagaru freight route, originally billed as a nation‑building link between Melbourne and Brisbane, will now stop beyond Parkes, about halfway between the two capitals.
Independent analysis put the cost blowout for the project at more than $45 billion, up from $16.4 billion in 2020, prompting Transport Minister Catherine King to “realign the future of Inland Rail” and focus on a safer, more efficient network.
The government will retain the land corridor north of Parkes but has no immediate plans to build the second half of the line.
Farmers and regional leaders have branded the unfinished project a “train to nowhere”, warning communities that bet on the line will wear the cost for decades.
Queensland Farmers’ Federation chief executive Jo Sheppard says walking away from the full route is a missed opportunity to boost productivity, cut emissions and transform the way freight moves across the country.
“Leaving this project unfinished will be worn as a long‑term cost for our country and particularly our regions,” she says.
Queensland’s Western Downs mayor Andrew Smith calls the cutback a hugely disappointing blow that will leave already worn‑out country roads carrying heavy trucks for years.
For Mr Compton, the latest decision is another twist in a three‑decade fight over what Inland Rail should be and who it should serve.
He first took the idea of a back country freight route to Canberra in March 1996, pitching a privately funded line the length of the continent.
“I got involved in the concept … from Melbourne to Darwin, up through the middle of NSW and Queensland,” he says.
“I went to see (then prime minister) John Howard to get his approval for me to start trying to put together a consortium to do it, which he did.”
But the plan that emerged years later was very different.
Instead of a Melbourne‑Darwin corridor looping through Gladstone, Emerald and Mount Isa, the Commonwealth backed a Melbourne‑Brisbane line from Beveridge, on Melbourne’s fringe, to Kagaru, south of Brisbane.
Mr Compton opposed that shift and was eventually sidelined.
“They got rid of me because I opposed the Melbourne to Brisbane section,” he says.
He objected to the line failing to start at Port of Melbourne or extending into Brisbane and questioned why it carved through farmland while bypassing existing transport corridors.
“Rural industries between Melbourne and Brisbane wouldn’t have been able to export anything on the railway because it didn’t go into a port,” he says.
“I also objected to the way in which they were acquiring land from people, taking over people’s land without any thought about their livelihood.”
The cost explosion that ultimately stalled the project came as no surprise to the man who helped verify the original estimates.
He says the first estimate for getting from Melbourne to Brisbane was about $9 billion.
“You won’t believe it but the current estimate is it will cost $42 billion,” he says.
“All caused by money being wasted on incompetent contracting, legal battles with farmers whose livelihoods were being destroyed.
“They’ve wasted horrendous amounts of money. The federal government had to do something to stop the disaster but they should not have just said it’s off.”
Rather than rage against the cutback, Mr Compton has pitched a private‑sector alternative to complete the northern spine.
When the government signalled it would stop funding Inland Rail at Parkes, he asked to be allowed to build the missing link.
“I said to them, well, I want to negotiate for my private company to build the railway all the way to Parkes and then through to Queensland,” he says.
He has already assembled a board and backers – including bankers, miners and shipping interests – with a view to taking a new project through “financial close” over about two years.
That phase, he says, would include environmental studies, land‑rights work and talks with capital partners.
“We reckon we could do it with private capital,” Mr Compton says.
The federal government has agreed to talk about it but isn’t committed.
In the meantime, he says businesses that invested along the promised corridor have been cut adrift.
“There are a lot of people devastated along the way, people who were planning to open industries, and all the capital is now lost,” he says.
“People need a bit of hope.”
Inland Rail was never just about shifting containers from trucks to trains, Mr Compton says.
He sees it as a chance to redraw the population map.
“Thirty years ago, we said we need that chain of development away from the capital cities.
“We’ve got 80 per cent of the Australian population living in capital cities and the rest of the continent sparsely populated.”
His vision is for a string of growth corridors linking Gladstone, the Darling Downs and inland NSW to Melbourne, complete with new industries and jobs.
In that model, Inland Rail underpins not just freight movements but housing affordability and quality of life.
“You pay a million dollars for a miserable house in the city and then pay rising interest rates on it,” Mr Compton says.
“You can go out to a regional town and get yourself a lovely piece of land and build exactly the same house for $500,000.
“You don’t have a massive debt and you get a job in a new industry out there – a hell of a lot more healthy life, rather than getting around in a crowded city and getting COVID and influenza.”
The main loser is the regional development planned along the original route that will never happen, Mr Compton says.
At his age, he knows he may not see the full line built but he is determined to lock in a path others can follow.
“I’ve only got a few years left but … I’ll make this thing unstoppable.”
To him, Inland Rail is either a half‑built train to nowhere or the backbone of a different kind of Australia.
AAP