The Greens have again made high-speed rail a federal election issue, releasing a policy to fund the project in full and start with $1.6 billion for the first stages of planning and land reservation.
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Federal Farrer and NSW Albury candidate Dean Moss supported his party's plans for a fast train that could travel from Sydney to either Melbourne or Brisbane in under three hours.
He said with the Liberal and Labor parties saying the idea of high-speed rail needs to progress, "we’re closer than ever to actually seeing this become a reality”.
The Greens plan follows a study conducted between 2010 and 2013, and Mr Moss said it was important the route travel through Albury.
"We obviously want to grow our region in a sustainable way and be able to connect our community to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane,” he said.
“We’ve heard a lot of talk about investment and change, but we really want this service and looking at the proposal for fares, they’d really be competitive against what we’re paying for airfares anyway.”
But independent Farrer candidate and Albury mayor Kevin Mack said despite supporting the idea, it was just a “pipe dream” and pushing for it to happen would not make a difference.
“It will not happen in our lifetime,” he said.
“This is not a fantasy world we live in.
"Yes, we should have had a fast train by now.
“Why haven’t we got one? Because our governments of the day have not been prepared to take that risk.”
He said if the government was going to support high-speed rail, it could have been done with money used to purchase Snowy Hydro and questioned why the Greens would bring back old policies that were “a bridge too far”.
“My personal view is the Greens are bereft of policy. I respect the purpose of their intent, but how many times do we need to hear this one?” Cr Mack said.
Farrer MP Sussan Ley said the government was focusing on inland rail.
“I am a big supporter of fast rail, but an intercity passenger service from Brisbane to Melbourne has been investigated and the cost-to-benefit ratio at the moment is simply too big an ask on the taxpayer," she said.
Both Cr Mack and Labor Kieren's Drabsch acknowledged high-speed rail had been talk about so much over the past decade, it had even become the butt of jokes on the ABC’s Utopia television show.
Mr Drabsch said the viability of the infrastructure still needed to be investigated before committing any money.
"We're interested in looking at the business case for high-speed rail and we’re always interested in improving connectivity between our regional hubs and major cities,” he said.
“It’s a long, long way from being able to be built.
"This would be a major decide-based project.”
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