MEMBER FOR NEWCASTLE SHARON CLAYDON: Good morning, everyone. My name’s Sharon Claydon, a very proud Federal Member for Newcastle today. Welcome, for those of you that aren’t Novacastrians, because this is a very exciting day for Newcastle. As I like to refer to it as, this city is the birthplace of High Speed Rail in Australia. It’s terrific to welcome Minister Catherine King back to Newcastle. She’s of course no stranger to our city, and making some of the most strategic, important and long-lasting investments into our region. This is just the latest, but this is a really critical step forward for High Speed Rail. I’m going to leave all the details of that announcement to Minister King now.

But I’m also joined by the CEO of the High Speed Rail Authority, Mr Tim Parker. If anyone can build this project, we know under Tim Parker’s leadership it will be a thing, a real thing. Having finished off the Metro project in Sydney, this will be a walk in the park, I suspect.

I also want to welcome my local government colleagues, the acting Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Mayor of Newcastle, and my parliamentary colleague and neighbour, and dear friend, Meryl Swanson, Member for Paterson, because this project is not just about Newcastle, as much as I would like to claim that. It is a project for our region. And this is a project that has greater significance in my view for our regions than it does the capital city that we might seek to join.

Catherine will step us through all of those details, and I’m sure we’re happy- we have Mr Parker, of course, to answer any of those technical issues as well. But on that note, I’m going to hand across to Catherine King. Thank you.

MINISTER FOR INFRASTRUCTURE, TRANSPORT, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT CATHERINE KING: Thank you so much. It's terrific to be here in Newcastle again, Sharon, of course, with my friends and colleagues, Sharon Claydon and Meryl Swanson as well. We've also got with us in the background there, Jill Rossouw, who's the chair of the High Speed Rail Authority; Tim Parker, our CEO who'll be here to answer any of the technical questions as well; the acting Lord Mayor and the acting Deputy Mayor, thank you for joining us as well.

Well, this is a really significant development in the history of high speed rail. If you think back to the 2022 election campaign, the Prime Minister and I, alongside Sharon, made the commitment that we would start the work, the hard, purposeful work, of getting high speed rail to Australia, concentrating on the Newcastle central coast to Sydney corridor. We legislated in our first term the High Speed Rail Authority and did the business case. Today we are releasing the business case. It will be up on the High Speed Rail Authority's website as of now. That business case shows that this is a project whose time has come, and that stacks up in Australia.

We are also announcing today further investment in the two-year development phase. Infrastructure Australia has taken the business case, provided that assessment to us and provided advice to government that this is now ready to invest in the development phase. What that means is doing all of the detailed design work, getting early contractor involvement to make sure we have got this project right. Getting the design of the tunnels, getting the design of the stations, understanding the signalling system that is needed, getting that designed right the way through, really getting this ready for a future investment.

This is a significant project for Australia. It is not something that is built overnight nor built on the back of a press release. It is that steady, purposeful work that we are undertaking to really make sure this project stacks up and that we are ready for significant investment to build this project. We're concentrating, obviously, first on stage 1A and 1B, which is the Newcastle to Sydney stage. We are then- obviously, the business case will talk about what future stages might be possible, taking it through to Western Sydney International Airport via Parramatta, then also on to Canberra, then also onto Melbourne and potentially onto Brisbane. But they are a way away. We’re really concentrating on this 1A and 1B process during the business development phase.

What the business case shows really clearly is that investing in high speed rail brings a return of some $250 billion of economic activity here in Australia. Ninety-nine thousand jobs, 160,000 new households in this region. And really what this is, is not just a rail project. It is building the economic future of the Hunter. You can hear the cockatoos are barracking for that now as we're speaking! Really building the economic future of the Hunter as a region. Imagine the opportunities for businesses to take the decision that they're going to get out of the CBD in Sydney and actually locate their headquarters and their major operations here in Newcastle. Being able to go to Sydney on occasion if you need to, but actually providing that workforce here. So whilst the High Speed Rail will bring the travel down from Newcastle to Sydney to an hour, from Gosford to Sydney to 30 minutes, really what that means for this economy here is a heavy vote of confidence.

Now, we know the costs of this project are high. You can't build a rail project without significant costs. There's none in the country that haven't cost money. High Speed Rail is an expensive project. The business case talks about, in terms of 1A and 1B, the cost being around the $55 billion mark. Now, that, of course, includes all of the stations, all of the signalling, an advanced manufacturing facility to actually build the trains here, and all of the rolling stocks. So, the construction of the actual rail itself is around about the $31 billion mark, but really overall the project, including rolling stock, we've made sure we've got all of that costed because you can't run a rail line without putting some trains on it as well.

We know that investment is significant, but if you think back to when we did Western Sydney Airport, it took- and when the Prime Minister was the Infrastructure Minister, starting that early planning work, getting that done, 12 years later, we are now opening Western Sydney Airport to freight in July and to passengers in October this year. That is what is required here in this country. Long-term vision to build those projects that we need. We know that we are going to work with private sector investors to see if we can get private sector investment along that development phase. It's up to Tim and his team to really make sure that we've got the costs down as far as we possibly can.

But really this is an exciting day in the history of High Speed Rail. We want to make it happen. We really want to see it come to Australia finally. We can't be the only populated country in the world without High Speed Rail, and under an Albanese Labor Government, we won't be. We'll be making sure we get on with getting the work done to bring high speed rail here to Australia. Tim's here to answer some of the more technical engineering questions. That is his forte. I'm happy to take questions as well. So over to you. And you’ll have to speak up quite a bit.

JOURNALIST: Minister, you mentioned $55 billion. Is that the total cost?

KING: Yeah, that is the total cost in terms of stages 1A, 1B, including all of the trains to go on, all of the stations, all of the signalling. Sometimes when you see figures around rail projects, they don't include all of that. We've included every single element of the project in that cost.

JOURNALIST: Previous estimates have suggested a total cost of $90 billion. Can you confirm [inaudible]…

KING: Yeah, so the cost for 1A and 1B, on the business case, that are the figures and they'll be released today. The $90 billion figure, which I think has been in the figure- is to get it to Western Sydney Airport. So that's the next phase, 1C. So that would take it through Parramatta to Western Sydney Airport. But we're not focused on that in the development phase. We're focused on the first two phases, Newcastle to Sydney. That $90 billion cost is the next stage of the project. No questions?

JOURNALIST: Minister, the work ahead, is there still a final decision before this actually…

KING: Yeah, so this is getting it ready for a final investment decision. If you think of the way the private sector works, they do a huge amount of work before they actually are ready to make that final investment decision. So what we've done is, again, the steady, purposeful work. We started with the announcement. We legislated the High Speed Rail Authority, set up the board and the workforce, again, which a lot of expertise has come out of the Metro in New South Wales onto the High Speed Rail Authority, which we're grateful for. We've then done the business case throughout our first term in government. Now we are saying, in line with Infrastructure Australia, the next phase for us is to do the detailed design work, really getting this, all of the granular activity about exactly what is going to be built, where and how, and getting all of that done over the next two years, ready for a future investment decision in late 2028.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]… wasted taxpayer money?

KING: So $70 million has been spent on the business case. We made the announcement back in 2022. We provisioned $500 million. What we're doing now is rolling over the remainder of that $500 million and adding that $230 million to that to do the development phase. We are going to have to employ a lot of people in this development phase, doing that design work, people who are experts at geotechnical work, at engineering work, at planning work. So getting all of the planning and environmental approvals through this, as you'd understand, this new rail line does go through some fairly sensitive areas. So all of that work, this is what that money goes for, getting this ready, so that we know really what this project looks like, what the design is, so it is ready for that final investment decision, and then ready straight away for construction.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible question]

KING: So the business case, as I said, the $70 million for the business case will be released today, and you can have a look at that.

JOURNALIST: How much private investment would you be looking at for this development phase? And I guess, why would private investment be needed?

KING: Well, if you look at High Speed Rail 2 over in the UK, and what it's doing for the city of Birmingham, and I use that as a really important example. It's expensive. It is a difficult project to build. But what that's meant is, I think in terms of investment, there has been superannuation funds who’ve invested in that. Part of the role of the UK Government has been to de-risk the project for that private sector investment. And again, what we'll be looking at through the development process is what level of interest there is from the private sector. What does that look like from us? It may be that we build the stations, they build the rail. It may be that they want to invest in the rolling... So we'll work all that through as part of the development phase. But really, what we're saying as a government, we want to bring high speed rail here. Its policy purpose is to bring affordable transport here to the people of Newcastle, the Central Coast, and Sydney, and really, that will be front and centre of any decisions that we might make about future financing opportunities. But it would be remiss of us, frankly, with a project this size, not to look at that private sector investment, which has been part of High Speed Rail in other countries.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible question]

KING: Yeah, and I understand some of the scepticism. This has been talked about for a long time. So was Western Sydney Airport, frankly. Thirty years it’s been been talked about that we needed a second airport in Sydney. We're opening it this year. You have to have long-term vision. Obviously, as a government, we are really focused on the day to day lives of Australian people and cost of living and everyday work of government. But you've also got to have a vision. You've got to start the work now to get those long-term construction projects done. And really, that's what we're doing here, is saying we're taking really purposeful steps to get this project ready for investment, ready for all of that design work to be done, to be ready for construction. And so, I think if you look at what this government's record is in terms of delivery, you can have a lot of confidence that we really love High Speed Rail. We want to see it be a reality, and that's why we're putting the work in. We've learnt the lessons from High Speed Rail projects overseas. We've learned the lessons, frankly, from Inland Rail, which has been a disaster financially, and the way in which it's been started without having an end or start point. Really, we've learned all of the lessons from that, and that's why we're taking a cautious, purposeful approach, but also one that has vision to bring high speed rail.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible question]

KING: Well, again, as I say, I point to that early work done on Western Sydney International Airport, with the Prime Minister as Infrastructure Minister. I look at Moorebank Intermodal Terminal. Again, a huge investment, but something now that is generating jobs in Western Sydney. This project is of scale in terms of that investment. And as I've said, we've deliberately, if you look at the staging of the way in which we've done this project, cautious but purposeful approach to actually get this delivered. We haven't just gone and put out press releases. We haven't tried to bite off more than we can chew. Frankly, I think there are many communities who are suddenly saying, well, why not High Speed Rail to Canberra tomorrow? Why not straight to Melbourne? We know taking this- and looking at the Newcastle to Sydney bit first, looking at the costs of that, that is realistic to the sort of scale and level of project that we can do, and then let's see where it can go from there. But let's get this first bit done and built.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible question]

KING: Our view very firmly is we're getting this ready for final investment decision. That will be a future decision of government to make, but we're doing all of the work to get it ready for that decision.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible question]

KING: Yeah. So we're going to need help from the New South Wales Government in terms of planning and environmental approvals. There will need to be some land acquisition policies done along the way as well, access to their technical expertise. All of those things in terms of the New South Wales Government, that is what we're focused on with them at the moment. Of course, we'd love them to invest too, but I understand Premier Minns has said he doesn't want to do that. That's a matter for him. Really, what we're focused on is with the New South Wales Government, getting all of those approvals and all of that work done collaboratively with them, because obviously, it's going to be a huge benefit to New South Wales.

JOURNALIST: Isn’t that disappointing, given the benefits?

KING: I'll leave that to Premier Minns. They've been incredibly helpful to date, can I just say, incredibly helpful on this project to date, providing technical expertise, providing some of their former staff, from the Metro projects to Tim's team, to actually really understand- if anyone knows the rail network here in New South Wales, it's both Tim and many of the people who are involved in those Metro projects. So being able to actually use the expertise and lessons from that to come into this project has been really helpful. They stand ready to help us with the planning work, the land acquisition strategies, and all of those things, and I'm very grateful for that support. It's good to be able to collaborate with them on this project.

JOURNALIST: How confident are you, if there is a change of government, that such a change of government would continue the project?

KING: Well, that is a matter for- at the moment, we've got three parties in Opposition. We've got the Liberal Party, the National Party, and now it appears One Nation. So I'll let them all speak for themselves. They've frankly been not always together or on the same page with some of these projects. So I'll let them speak for themselves. We're very determined to be a long-term government to deliver high speed rail, and we're very focused on what we can do to help the cost of living for everyday Australians under what is a really difficult time for many Australians, at the same time as having that long-term vision about what it will mean for the people of Newcastle and the people of Sydney.

Now, imagine being able to have high-paying, high skilled jobs growing here in Newcastle. Newcastle and the Hunter are such a huge economic opportunity. You can see what a beautiful place it is to live, beautiful place it is to work. High Speed Rail delivers that economic opportunity for Newcastle, in particular in the Hunter, and we're really looking forward to delivering it.

JOURNALIST: So there’s no chance for the contracts to be ripped up [indistinct]?

KING: Well, in terms of contracts that we enter into the development phase, that- again, they will- we're not contemplating not being in government post-2028, but that is up to the Australian people. We don't take anything for granted when it comes to that, but our record stands. We are delivering infrastructure projects across the country, it'll be a matter for the Libs, the National Party and One Nation as an Opposition, as a bloc of opposition parties, to make decisions about what they want to do in terms of the future of High Speed Rail. So far, the Liberal Party has been supportive. I'm really looking forward to having that support continue.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible question]

KING: Yes, of course.

JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] groups are pushing for [indistinct] Parramatta not Central to cater for the growing Western Sydney [indistinct]. Is this is something [indistinct]?

KING: So the scope of the project, 1A to 1B, is to get it into Central. The next stage, 1C, is to then go to Parramatta and then go to Western Sydney International. That's the most logical way to actually develop this project and really make sure we do bring in Parramatta and we do bring in Western Sydney International Airport eventually. But really, the first phase of the project, logically, is to get people from Newcastle into the centre of town and then out further beyond that. Then it goes from Western Sydney International Airport into Canberra, then through Goulburn and through Shepparton into Melbourne. That's the sort of- that's a long term, long way off.

JOURNALIST: And, I guess, is that the wider goal, connecting the entire east coast?
KING: Yeah, of course. If you look- when you look at the business case, you'll see, that the first 1A and 1B phases stack up from a cost benefit point of view. But the more you add, the more opportunities for housing, for economic development you add, and then the more the business case also grows. But as I said, we're really taking this in chunks. We're concentrating on the delivery of this first section, and then further work will need to be done in terms of the development of other sections of the rail.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible question]

KING: No, I think it would be pre-emptive for us to say- really, as I said, if you see the approach we're taking, cautious but purposeful, really making sure we get the work done and get the work right, learning the lessons, frankly, from Inland Rail and overseas High Speed Rail. Really what we're doing is saying two-year development phase, final investment decision, looking late 2028 at this stage, ready for construction in ‘29 and then the construction timetable will be released. But you need to do that detailed design work before you've actually got a construction timetable, so we're not there quite yet.

JOURNALIST: [Inaudible question]

KING: Because you have to have a detailed design work, which then gives you what your construction schedule is. And I don't know if you've built many projects, but that is the really complex work that you've got to undertake in order to actually schedule all of that out – you know, working out when do you bring your tunnel boring machines in from overseas? Working out what workforce do you need to step up, when and how? When do you bring your signalling in? When do you start construction of your rolling stock? All of that is part of the detailed design phase, and engineers basically sequence all of that very carefully, and that's how you get your construction timetable. You don't get a construction timetable until you've done your detailed design work, which is what the development phase does. Thanks everybody. Thanks very much.

JOURNALIST: In terms of [indistinct], what is the most challenging part from the design point of view from [indistinct]?

HIGH SPEED RAIL AUTHORITY CEO TIM PARKER: My role, I'm a deliverer, so my role is to get us construction ready. So when we look at the project, it's big. It's very, very large. So for us, the difficulty is around making sure that when we're designing this, we're considering not just Newcastle to Sydney, but also the national network. So all the considerations are both for the, if you like, the first part, but also the larger part. And obviously we have some challenges. We have very different geographical challenges, particularly coming into Sydney with a national park, hills. I think we've all been on the train or the M1. That’ll be challenging, but from the metro experience, we have really, really good tunnelling experience now in Australia, so that is expertise we will not have to import. It's here already, so I think it will be challenging, but I think it's very doable.

JOURNALIST: How much land do you expect to have to acquire to build the [indistinct]?

PARKER: That'll be worked out through the detailed design, and that is one of the things that as the Minister said, we're not going to go off quickly to start buying land. We're going to work with contractors. We're going to have a competitive ECI process where contractors are involved from day one. They will optimize the drive strategies, how we're going to do the tunnelling, where the stations are, and that type of thing. So there will be land required, obviously, for a project of this size, but we're going to wait until we've got a firmer design before we do any form of assessing what land we actually require.

JOURNALIST: So from what you know now, whereabouts will the train go underground? Because obviously you can’t repurpose the track around the Central Coast. It's just too windy.

PARKER: No, at the moment we're looking somewhere around the Central Coast. So it'll go from- well, this will come out through the design, but somewhere in that Central Coast area it will go underground, and it will probably stay underground right the way through to Central.

JOURNALIST: Have you considered line subsidence issues around the Lower Hunter?

PARKER: Yeah, we've done preliminary geotechnical work. Part of the work in the next two years is to be more geotechnical. Certainly, we know that is a key issue for us. We know that obviously you've had earthquakes in Newcastle. All that needs to be assessed and the detailed design done to actually make sure that whatever we come up with, it's construction ready. We've looked at the risks. We've got an absolute project that can be delivered safely, on time and on budget.

JOURNALIST: Can high speed rail travel at the same speed above ground as underground?

PARKER: No, it's slightly slower underground. Basically, depending on the size of the tunnel determines the speed. So we're looking at a speed of around about 200 kilometres an hour in the tunnel section, and up to 320 on the surface. But when you think about 200, that's much, much faster than any train in Australia at the moment.

JOURNALIST: I guess, in terms of some of the other [indistinct], how many passengers [indistinct] …

PARKER: Yeah, look, the corridor between Newcastle and Sydney is one of the busiest corridors in the country. About 15 million passengers a year are using that corridor. We also have about 32 million people on the M1. And this project, when you look at it, it's not so much whether you do it – it’s what is the counterfactual? If you don't do this, what do you do? You either have to invest an awful lot of money into trying to upgrade the railway with all the expense and disruption, and looking at trying to widen the M1 would be incredibly difficult environmentally and technically. This offers a really good alternative to increase the capacity of that corridor. And imagine if you are currently living in Newcastle traveling to Sydney – it's about 2.5 hours. I use the word “about” because every time we use that figure, someone from Newcastle says, if you're lucky. It is a- you know, and they're doing that there and back. A one hour journey will fundamentally change how Newcastle and Sydney work together.

And as the Minister said, this isn't about feeding Sydney. It's quite the opposite. What we've seen overseas is when you have high speed, it attracts regional development. People want to locate in the region. Look at Newcastle – what a great place to live and work. And of course, you can build businesses here and still attract people from Sydney to Newcastle and in the regions.