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An artist's render of an Australian high-speed train. (Image: High Speed Rail Authority)
Opinion: Aviation ignores high-speed rail at its peril
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One could be forgiven for dismissing Australia’s latest tilt at high-speed rail: we’ve heard all this before, the argument goes; it’s too expensive, it’s pie-in-the-sky, it’ll never work, it’s a white elephant. Certainly, the price tag – around $90 billion for just the first stage between Sydney and Newcastle – looks eye-popping at face value, and given that previous forays into high-speed rail have never so much as seen a shovel touch earth, it’s easy for the aviation sector to file the plans away under “never going to happen” and go back to bare-knuckle brawling over the Golden Triangle.
And yet – this time might really be different after all. The federal government seems inclined to go full steam ahead on high-speed rail, with the recently released business case for the Sydney–Newcastle leg saying that the project will boost the Australian economy by $250 billion over the next half-century.
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