rime Minister Anthony Albanese wants to be the leader who puts the shovel in the ground to build Australia\u2019s first very fast train.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAustralia is the only inhabited continent on earth that doesn\u2019t already have high-speed rail,\u201d Albanese declared this week, after announcing planning will proceed on a 194-kilometre route from Newcastle to Western Sydney International Airport.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n No decision on the project will be made for two years but if completed, getting from Newcastle to Sydney will take an hour instead of the more than 2\u00bd hours today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, while train manufacturers and construction companies are delighted to accept billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to construct the proposed $93 billion project \u2013 which will be the most expensive piece of infrastructure ever built in Australia \u2013 economists, engineers and investors roll their eyes and bet privately that it will never happen.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEveryone always gets very excited when these new infrastructure projects come along and get announced, and everyone always thinks it\u2019s going to sort of be nirvana,\u201d says David Orsmond, economics professor at Sydney\u2019s Macquarie Business School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Past reviews of proposed high-speed rail routes have never been able to justify the costs, Orsmond points out. \u201cThe question is, well, what\u2019s different this time around?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lost in the hype of how many jobs will be created and declarations of \u201cnation building\u201d is the question of whether the project stacks up financially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n