By Terry Ryder, May 2026

There are cost blowouts.

And then there is Inland Rail.

The Albanese Government has now effectively scrapped the northern half of the once-grand Melbourne-to-Brisbane Inland Rail project, after a fresh assessment found the full build would cost more than $45 billion and would not be finished until at least 2036 or 2037.

This was meant to be a nation-building freight corridor. A 1,600km rail spine linking Melbourne and Brisbane through regional Australia. Faster freight. Fewer trucks. Safer roads. Better access for farmers and exporters. A major productivity boost.

Instead, it has become another case study in how Australia manages to turn big infrastructure promises into slow-moving bureaucratic disasters – or, in this case, dead in its tracks.

And we have been warning about this for some time.

In our previous article on the Inland Rail cost blowout, we noted how the project had already spiralled from an original budget of around $16 billion to more than $31 billion. That was bad enough.

Now the number is $45 billion-plus.

More than four times the original estimate.

After years of planning. After years of political chest-beating. After construction had already started. After billions had already been spent.

The project began construction in 2018. Yet by 2024, only 17% of the planned line had been built, according to one report. Another says 436km, or 27%, of the corridor has been completed. Either way, the result is the same: years of work, billions in public money, and a project still nowhere near delivering what was promised.

The Queensland section has now been axed from federal funding.

That means the route north of Parkes through to the NSW/Queensland border, Toowoomba and Kagaru south of Brisbane has been shelved indefinitely. The corridor will be “preserved”. Future intermodal terminal sites at Gowrie and Ebenezer will be “protected”.

That is bureaucratic language for: we are not building it.

The new plan is to complete the southern section from Beveridge near Melbourne to Parkes by the end of 2027. That will allow double-stacked freight trains to run between Melbourne and Perth via Parkes.

Useful? Yes.

The original project? No.

This is no longer Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail. It is Melbourne to Parkes with a political press release attached.

Infrastructure Minister Catherine King says the government is making “sensible decisions” and will redirect $1.75 billion into upgrading the Australian Rail Track Corporation network. Another $55 million will be used to encourage more freight onto rail and ships.

That may be a better use of money now. But taxpayers are entitled to ask a more basic question.

How did this happen?

How does a project of this size get announced, promoted, funded, reviewed, revised and partly built before government finally admits the full version is unaffordable and years behind schedule?

The 2023 Kerry Schott review found major deficiencies in governance and delivery. The latest assessment puts the total cost above $45 billion. Environmental approvals for all four Queensland sections were still outstanding, despite the original proposal having them built by 2025.

This is not just a cost problem.

It is a competence problem.

The political blame game has already started. Labor blames the former Coalition Government for an “unfunded, unplanned” mess. The Coalition says Labor has killed a nationally significant productivity project. Queensland politicians, from both sides, are calling it disappointing.

They are all partly right.

But the real loser is the taxpayer.

The other loser is regional Australia.

Farmers, exporters and freight operators were told this line would transform access to markets and ports. Queensland was told it would be part of a national freight solution. Motorists were told it would remove large numbers of trucks from the roads.

Now they get another half-built promise.

Australia desperately needs long-term infrastructure planning. But what it keeps getting is short-term politics, weak scoping, shifting budgets, poor accountability and reviews that arrive after the damage is done.

Inland Rail was supposed to move freight.

Instead, it has moved the goalposts.