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May 17th, 2013 
THE Commonwealth’s Cross River Rail project for Brisbane is a con job, Queensland’s transport minister says.
Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan and Transport Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Friday the commonwealth will fund up to $715 million of the $5.2 billion project.
It consists of four underground stations and about 10 kilometres of rail from Yeerongpilly on the south side to Victoria Park on the north side of the Brisbane river.
Mr Swan says it’s an important piece of nation-building infrastructure that will reduce pressure on existing rail services.
Queensland Transport Minister Scott Emerson says he supports the project but not the way the federal government wants to fund it.
“With these type of projects, the federal government should be paying the lion’s share but instead, in this agreement, they will only pay for 25 per cent,” Mr Emerson told reporters.
“The state will be left to pay for the rest.”
He said half of the federal government’s contribution will come from Queensland’s GST payments.
“That’s unfair to taxpayers,” he said.
“GST is the state’s money coming back from the federal government.
“What they want to do is give with one hand and take away with the other; that’s the con job we are seeing here.”
Mr Albanese says Queensland got what it wanted and a letter from Mr Emerson shows he supported the plan.
“Instead of attending this joint press conference to announce formally this exciting project, what we have is the Queensland government playing politics,” Mr Albanese said.
“They need to … get on with doing not only what they said they’ll do but what they asked the federal government to do and we agreed.”
He said the rail line was a vital project.
Other future rail projects, including Queensland’s Moreton Bay rail line, could be scrapped under an Abbott government, he added.
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