CANBERRA, ACT, March 4 -- The Prime Minister of Australia issued the following media release:
The time has come for high-speed rail in Australia - for the good of Australians and, as the business case now shows, for the good of the economy.
In our first term, we legislated the High Speed Rail Authority to develop that business case. Now that it is complete, we can continue turning that vision into reality. We're doing that by moving the Sydney to Newcastle stage into the development phase.
This is a big project worthy of a big nation. While the costs are necessarily high, the returns will be even greater.
With speeds of up to 320 km/h, high-speed rail will cut travel time from Newcastle to Sydney to one hour and from Gosford to Sydney t...