Given high-speed rail\u2019s much mocked history of failed starts in Australia, Tim Parker manages to appear optimistic, even excited, about the decades-long project he has been tasked with delivering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Parker, a former senior executive at Sydney<\/a> Metro, was in January appointed inaugural chief executive of the High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) \u2013 the body established to carry out Labor\u2019s 2022 election commitment to build the rail line along the east coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Progress has been anything but high speed. It took until June 2023 for the authority to be created, while work on a business case for the initial Sydney-Newcastle section has only just begun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Parker \u2013 a British transport and infrastructure specialist who has also worked in Hong Kong \u2013 paints a colourful picture of his vision for high-speed rail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For starters, he has much more detail \u2013 such as news of tenders being awarded \u2013 about the project than his interim predecessor, whose appearance at a Senate estimates hearing in October laid bare the project\u2019s glacial pace and drew comparisons to Utopia, a TV series satirising the absurdity of government bureaucracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Parker has prepared himself for when his organisation is compared to one of the best known episodes in that series about this very issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe way around [Utopia comparisons] is to just deliver, but also to get some excitement back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t need to talk about nation building or anything, because this is a fundamental project that could change so many people\u2019s lives for the better \u2026 it\u2019s not just making your commute quicker, it\u2019s about moving settlement patterns and creating prosperous cities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grand stations, onboard internet, good coffee and pets are just some of the things Parker wants to see in a bullet train future for Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Parker\u2019s authority has a head start thanks to a wealth of existing feasibility studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He says a federal government study from 2013 for a line between Melbourne<\/a>and Brisbane forms the basis of the HSRA\u2019s early plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most recent proposal for high-speed trains between Sydney and Newcastle \u2013 the\u00a0New South Wales<\/a>\u00a0government\u2019s \u201cfast rail\u201d plan to go it alone without federal help, unveiled by then premier Gladys Berejiklian before the 2019 state election \u2013 will also shape the planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Four years after the push for 250km per hour trains on the corridor began, and with roughly $100m spent on feasibility studies,\u00a0Guardian Australia revealed the Perrottet government quietly abandoned the plan<\/a>, abruptly halting work on a final business case just as geotechnical drilling was being finalised. The Minns Labor government officially \u201cdescoped\u201d the project when it came to power in 2023. No corridor was preserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Transport advocates and business groups blasted what they saw as the wastefulness of yet another addition to the graveyard of bullet train studies<\/a>, but Parker says 24 of the Transport for NSW staff who worked on the state plan have been seconded to the HSRA. He hopes to have a team of about 100 by the end of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLet\u2019s not throw that stuff away,\u201d Parker says of the NSW plan. \u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do is not reinvent the wheel. The reality is, there\u2019s been a lot of work done already; part of our task now is to harness that work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The HSRA must deliver a business case and a product definition report for the Brisbane-Melbourne line by the end of the year, funded by $78.8m from the commonwealth<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Land that needs to be preserved to provide a corridor in and out of cities will be recommended in the report. While it\u2019s a tight timeframe, Parker believes it\u2019s possible \u201cbecause we\u2019re not starting from scratch\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s people on board who have been looking at this for a number of years,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The authority is yet to determine the exact route and location of stations, but Parker holds two strong views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Building on previous studies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n