Six months after its establishment, the Albanese government’s high-speed rail body is yet to appoint a chief executive or begin planning any train projects, as the opposition accuses it of achieving “absolutely nothing” towards its fast rail ambition.
Labor took its renewed push for high-speed rail along Australia’s east coast to the 2022 election, along with a commitment of $500m for planning and early works for the first stage of the corridor from Sydney to Newcastle.
The government’s High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) only formally came into existence in June after legislation was passed paving the way for the abolishment of the National Faster Rail Agency (NFRA), a body established by the Morrison government in 2019 which did not deliver on earlier high-speed rail projects.
This week, the transport department said the HSRA board was still in the process of finalising a choice for a permanent CEO. Guardian Australia understands that the decision is now before cabinet but that an appointment may not be announced until next year.
“The HSRA board is currently finalising a recruitment process for a chief executive officer, with an announcement expected early in the new year,” a department spokesperson said.
Interviews for the CEO role had been conducted by October, the HSRA’s interim chief, Andrew Hyles, told a budget estimates hearing that month.
The board first announced it was working to identify its inaugural CEO on 13 June – the day the HSRA came into existence. It took a month and a half, until 26 July, when the transport minister, Catherine King, announced an advertisement for the job had been listed online.
Industry insiders had questioned the position, telling the Guardian the advertised salary for the CEO role was low when compared with leaders in similar roles.
The glacial pace of the government’s fast rail project was laid bare during October’s estimates hearing, when Hyles told senators that detailed planning had yet to begin and would not begin until 2024 as the organisation was busy completing its “organisational strategy”.
The project also drew comparisons to Utopia – the TV series satirising the absurdity of government bureaucracy – after Hyles referred senators asking about progress to a “corporate plan” published on its website.
When Guardian Australia asked the department to identify and detail progress the HSRA had made since its formation, a spokesperson said “the HSRA is working closely with a range of stakeholders to progress planning for high-speed rail in Australia”.
The department also said Hyles was unable to be interviewed about progress.
Bridget McKenzie, the Nationals senator and opposition transport spokeswoman, said “there was a lot of fanfare about the High Speed Rail Authority which was allocated $500m by the incoming government”.
“We are yet to see any return on that investment, not even a forward plan,” she said.
“It is one thing to strip funding from regional development that the previous government had provided but quite another to do absolutely nothing with it.”
In July, King – who has since faced increasing pressure from other parts of her portfolio, including questions about Qantas’ influence in aviation policy, an infrastructure project review and promised details of the government’s fuel efficiency standard – travelled to the United Kingdom for a study tour of high-speed rail.
She met with officials involved in the British High Speed 1 and 2 (HS1 and HS2) projects, later telling the media she had learned about potential funding models – such as through pension funds – that Australia could learn from.
A spokeswoman for King told Guardian Australia: “Given the size and scale of building a new high-speed rail system, it must be based on meticulous planning, good governance and highly effective project management.
“It is essential that the HSRA take the time now to establish a robust foundation on which to deliver high speed rail and this means the planning has to be done properly and in detail to avoid mistakes made in the past with projects like Inland Rail,” the spokeswoman said.
Despite experts identifying high-speed rail as a way to spread population growth outside capital cities and ultimately reduce the emissions from Australia’s reliance on air travel as it seeks to meet ambitious climate targets, various governments’ commitments to fast rail have come into question in the past year.
In September, the newly elected New South Wales’ Labor government confirmed it would not reverse the former Coalition’s decision to abandon its vision to build its own dedicated fast rail line between Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra despite four years and about $100m spent on feasibility studies.
Meanwhile, Australia’s significant nationwide infrastructure pipeline has seen the costs of construction inflated, leading to some projects, including the Melbourne-Geelong fast rail, being axed while other key rail projects, such as Sydney’s Metro West line, have been delayed to keep a lid on costs.
Some rail experts have questioned the government’s decision to choose Sydney-Newcastle as the first stage of the corridor, due to the environmental challenges requiring a tunnelling megaproject, instead of easier and faster stages such as between Canberra and Sydney.
