History of high speed rail from Newcastle to Sydney over the decades

The Australian government has appointed a chair and four board members to the High Speed Rail Authority, which will formally begin on June 13.

Jill Rossouw, who is the infrastructure executive director at IFM Investors and a board member of the Port of Brisbane, will act as chair.

The board will be made up of Dyan Crowther, Gillian Brown, Ian Hunt and Neil Scales, who each have varying experience in transport and infrastructure roles.

The authority will oversee the development of the high-speed rail network along the east coast of Australia, with Newcastle to Sydney their first priority.

Numerous governments have floated the idea of cutting the Newcastle to Sydney journey to less than an hour with various amounts of enthusiasm, but Hunter residents have long expressed scepticism.

Comments on the Herald website have ranged from ''This will never happen'' and ''To federal Labor, how many more bloomin' times are you going to bring this out in an attempt to get more votes?' in 2013, to "This fairy tale just goes on and on" and "A new team to revisit an old problem" ten years later.

High-speed rail has been investigated in Australia as early as the 1980s, but funding and time have remained key obstacles to the concept.

In 2010, the last time before last year that Labor won power federally, the government spent $20 million on a feasibility study for fast rail. A document from later that year showed Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese was told the high-speed rail plan was not viable due to low population.

The study was released in 2013. It found the Newcastle to Sydney section would be the most expensive link in Australia's proposed high-speed rail network and would not be operational until 2045.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was Transport Minister at the time, and flagged concerns the project would be costly and disruptive.

Then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd followed the study up with a $52 million commitment before the 2013 election to start land buying for a high-speed rail corridor connecting Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.

But when the Liberals won government later that year, the funding was cut and a High Speed Rail Advisory Group was scrapped.

In 1998, Bob Carr's NSW government pledged to have a high-speed link to Newcastle by 2010. He said at a lecture in Newcastle in 2010 the project was hampered by its cost.

In 2002, then transport minister John Anderson ended a federal investigation of a high-speed project because of the ''potentially enormous'' cost.

Then-Newcastle MP Sharon Grierson said in 2010 Labor's $20 million study into fast rail should prompt the state government to consider a light rail system for Newcastle, and the high-speed rail proposal could tie in with the consideration of a second Sydney airport. The light rail was completed in 2019, and Sydney's new airport is due for completion in 2026.

A high-powered consortium of business leaders government, officials and politicians launched a bid in 2012 for a high speed network in the Hunter, while private interest from overseas has been touted to build the project at various times over the years.

Mr Albanese also pushed the idea from opposition. In 2016 as shadow transport spokesperson, he reintroduced to Parliament a private member's bill to establish a High-Speed Rail Planning Authority after Malcolm Turnbull ousted Tony Abbott as prime minister.

A National Faster Rail Agency was established in 2019 to work with state and territory governments on opportunities to develop rail infrastructure between major cities and key regional centres.

It was reported in March 2023 the NSW government had shelved plans to build a dedicated high-speed rail line between Sydney and Newcastle, after spending close to $100 million on planning the project.

The federal government allocated $13.58 million across three years to the new High Speed Rail Authority to plan a Newcastle and Sydney connection.

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