How the West lost everything

Parramatta to Epping rail link

The rail line from Epping to Parramatta was part of the project to build a rail link from Parramatta to Chatswood and St Leonards and received the required approval from the Director General of the Department of Planning in February 2002. The project had been the subject of extensive consultations with Councils and Community groups at Parramatta, Epping, Chatswood and tragically Lane Cove and had been extensively modified in the course of these discussions. Community groups had pressured the Government to abandon plans to build a rail bridge over the Lane Cove river and instead to tunnel under the river. Costs blew out and the relatively inexpensive rail link from Epping to Parramatta was postponed.

The Gillard government promised funding for the project but it was subsequently downgraded in the list of priorities when the O'Farrell government refused to make the required state funding contribution. Tony Abbott has announced that there will be no federal funding for urban rail projects ever by a coalition government.

The Parramatta/Epping rail link was designed to provide a direct link between the western suburbs and the northern rail lines and the bus services to the north east from Epping and the bus services to the Northern Beach suburbs from Chatswood. Commuters would not be forced to catch a train service that crossed the Harbour Bridge and transfer to an outbound Central Coast train at Strathsfield station or actually stay on the train across the Bridge. This would relieve pressure on the train services between Epping and Strathfield and on the train services across the Harbour Bridge.

Now Baird has confirmed that if he wins the election on 28th March the taxpayer funded rail line from Epping to Chatswood will be made inaccessible to double-deck trains from the Western line through Parramatta. Parramatta was the second major settlement after the establishment of the colony at Farm Cove. The hopes of Parramatta to cement its place as the western city hub will never eventuate if the self-proclaimed Minister for Western Sydney is not sent packing on 28th March.

The First Tranche

The Sydney Morning Herald was able to obtain files on the North West Rail under the Government Information (Public Access) act despite fierce opposite from the government. They have published the confidential cabinet report on CBD Rail Capacity Programs Rail Futures Investigations

The remarkable thing is that the project announced precipitously by Baird as he was reeling from resignations in the wake of the ICAC hearings did not feature in any of the scenarios considered in the investigations. As far as can be gathered from all the documents that the government was forced to release no attempt has ever been made to cost the project Baird has cited as the reason for hocking the urban electricity distribution network for 99 years.

The investigation confidential to Cabinet use stylised diagrams of the rail network and had the childish assertions about trains per hour like those that were trumpeted in the Light Rail brochures, EIS and Secretary's Assessment report. The scenarios were grouped into three categories according to whether the Harbour Bridge rail line (shown above), the Airport Line or half the Erskineville lines were to taken over by the privately-owned single-deck Metro. A tunnel under the Erskineville rail link from Central to Sydenham as announced by Baird was never considered, for obvious reasons.

Category C: the Growth Option

The scenario requiring a tunnel under the Harbour and taking over the two western rails of the Erskineville rail link was described as the Growth option. This option eliminated access to the CBD loop for all people who rely on the Bankstown rail line - the only stops in the CBD were to be at Town Hall and the dubious stop north of Martin Place.

The Plan announced by Baird as the excuse for selling 49% of the urban electricity distribution network was merely the precursor to the much larger scheme which includes the ludicrously uneconomic Northern Beaches rail line and duplication of the under-utilised line from Wolli Creek to Revesby and the line to Hurstville. It also includes conversion of the lines from Bankstown to Cabramatta and Lidcombe to single-deck trains - indeed it is difficult to see how these lines would continue to operate with double-deck trains if the line to Bankstown was unable to carry double-deck trains. Other scenarios for the Growth option show the Northern Beaches rail as a horizontal line east from Chatswood. No work has been done on the design or costing of this line but it is cited as the raison d'être for the Growth option.

The stylised maps taken to Cabinet by Ms Berejiklian all show the Harbour rail tunnel to the east of Wynyard and the Bridge, so clearly the costings in the "investigation" were bottom of the beer coaster calculations. $1 billion was added to the last costings for the Balmain to CBD Metro of $7 billion. No credibility can be attached to these figures - TfNSW has established form for systemic dishonesty.

Indisputably, selling 49% of electricity assets is just the first tranche of the taxpayer asset sales that would be necessary to make the Metro remotely feasible. The price of the Metro is a private monopoly controlling electricity prices with ownership of 100% of the electricity distribution network throughout urban areas.

Then there is the $3 billion dollar a year hit to recurrent state government spending in addition to the $20 billion a year Hockey says he will be taking from expenditure on schools and hospitals. No wonder Liberal Party Premiers and Federal backbenchers are calling for the GST to be increased to 15%.