THE start date for the promised independent review of Queensland’s section of the inland rail project will be announced within the next fortnight.
Queensland Country Life understands a chairperson has been appointed to head the review as details surrounding the terms of reference of the review are finalised. It is understood one sticking point is the size of the potentially difficult to manage 30 person community reference panel.
The review will be announced either next week or more likely in the following week when federal parliament is in recess. That recess will enable infrastructure minister Darren Chester to be on the ground in Queensland to make the announcement.
Despite a previously announced February deadline, the process is expected to take a minimum of three months and possibly up to six months to complete.
The announcement will allay fears that a previously announced deadline in February would enable inland rail builder Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) to deliberately frustrate the process of satisfying affected landholders that the most appropriate rail route had been selected.
The intervention follows an emergency meeting in Warwick in early October called to address a leaked report showing there were other potentially viable options the proposed route across the agriculturally important Condamine floodplain.
Mr Chester ordered an independent evaluation be made of four possible routes for the Queensland section of the project. Those routes all link North Star in northern NSW to Toowoomba. They are: Millmerran to Wellcamp, Millmerran to Gowie, Karara/Leyburn and one using the existing rail corridor incorporating a bypass near Warwick.
Federal member for Maranoa, David Littleproud, said it was vital that a baseline was established to enable each of the routes to be compared.
“We have to get this right because it is far too an important a project to get wrong,” Mr Littleproud said.
“The community has to be able to see how each route stacks up so that the best decision can be made.”
Following an analysis of the four potential routes, the selected route will be subject to an environmental impact statement process.
