Long term, I’d love to see us build high-speed rail all the way from the Sunshine Coast to Geelong, via the east coast capitals. But starting with smaller routes from major satellite cities into their capitals, like Newcastle–Sydney, is a fantastic way to build up local expertise before tackling the longer routes like Sydney–Canberra and Canberra–Melbourne.

I just really wish we were doing a better job at preparing for it. Like the soon-to-open Cross River Rail in Brisbane should have been designed wide enough to install dual-gauge rails with standard gauge, even if those additional rails weren’t themselves installed yet. But they haven’t been, and so when we come to eventually do the Brisbane–Gold Coast link it’s gonna be way more expensive than if we’d planned ahead.