Just one month after the Turnbull Government abandoned a high-speed East Coast rail link, the project is back on the agenda, with Consolidated Land and Rail Australia (CLARA) Pty Ltd – an Australian private group – launching a long-term plan to deliver high speed rail between Sydney and Melbourne.
Below are the key extracts of this plan from the CLARA website:
The Plan:
CLARA proposes to build two inland cities in Victoria and a further six in NSW. These cities will be advanced, sustainable SMART cities…
CLARA conjunctly proposes to build a High Speed Rail (HSR) network between Sydney and Melbourne via Canberra, connecting the proposed inland cities. This will include the construction of stations in each of the eight new cities as well as High Speed Rail platforms being developed for Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.
The eight cities project can deliver critical mass in passenger numbers for the HSR network, as well as unlock the significant financial benefits to the Australian economy of inland city development…
Phase One of the CLARA Plan is the proposed leg from Melbourne to the Greater Shepparton Region. This will involve a $13bn high speed rail into northern Victoria and the development of two new partner cities in the region over a 30 years. Phase One can begin within five years, with the high speed rail connection and first stage of the new cities online within a decade…
Australia is set to grow by more than 14 million citizens by 2050
As the Australian population grows by a further 14 million people over the coming decades we face a simple choice: either develop new, vibrant and better-connected cities or face the burden of the populations of both Sydney and Melbourne doubling by 2050…
CLARA’s privately-funded plan will address the widely recognised issue of over-crowding that faces Sydney and Melbourne. We will build new regional, compact, sustainable, smart-cities and connect them by most advanced high speed rail.
This is a completely comprehensive plan for population management and economic transition for Australia…
Funding:
CLARA has land under its legal control upon which to build its new regional cities. CLARA can truly capture the value from the land uplift and apply it paying for the high speed rail link.
Because CLARA has the land for new cities development our business model projects a commercially viable project that should not call on taxpayer funding.
CLARA’s pre-feasibility business model has the city sites and rail infrastructure being privately funded through the use of land value capture.
Unlike other proposals for high speed rail in the past, CLARA’s infrastructure can be paid for from the city development rather than from government coffers…
I have previously strongly opposed East Coast fast rail due to its:
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Exorbitant cost: the 2013 study estimated a HSR line linking the East Coast capitals would cost around $110 billion to build.
Lack of population density to support the project.
Lack of competitiveness against air travel unless there are massive ongoing operational subsidies from taxpayers.
Equity issues: why should residents of WA, SA, NT, TAS or anywhere else not located along the route fork-out huge taxpayer subsidies for what will in all likelihood be an infrastructure white elephant?
However, I am a pragmatist and would support the project if it would truly be funded privately, as promised, without taxpayer assistance.
Given that the Government seems intent to continue juicing Australia’s “population ponzi” no matter what, at least CLARA’s plan would take some of the pressure out of Sydney and Melbourne, which are beginning to burst out of their seams.
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
