Vast swathes of land in the ACT, earmarked for high speed rail tracks, are to be kept locked down and beyond the reach of housing developers, the ACT government says.
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The declaration follows warnings on Friday that the rapid sprawl of housing on the fringes of Sydney and Melbourne threatens to blow the nation's chance of a very fast train network by building over vital corridors for the long-awaited transport project.
Infrastructure Australia published a report on Friday saying fast trains could be running between Canberra and Sydney as early as 2032 but warned the NSW and Victorian governments that they must act now to protect the rail corridor from the rapid sprawl on the edges of their capital cities.
In the ACT, where a very fast train has been seen since the 1980s as a potential economic game-changer for the territory's economy, the Labor government says the land needed for the Canberra leg of a high speed rail route is safely out of the clutches of the house builders.
A corridor of land stretching from Canberra Airport, the present preferred site for the end of the spur line that is envisaged running into the ACT, north to the NSW border and broadly following the route the Majura Parkway has been protected from development for some time, Chief Minister Andrew Barr's office said on Friday.
"The ACT government has been involved in the Intergovernmental Working Group on the project to protect the corridor and we have done our bit by ensuring that the land identified by the group would be available if and when the federal government decided to undertake the project," a spokesman for Mr Barr said.
"It's up to other state governments to do the same."
While leases have been granted to landholders along the route, the territory government says the real estate can be made available quickly if a fast rail project gets moving.
Mr Barr's office also said the government was not content with a spur line to Canberra but was pushing for the capital to be part of the main line.
"More recently, the ACT government has been in discussions with the federal government on a number of variations to the project," the spokesman said.
"We have pushed the case that Canberra should not be on a 'spur line' to the main corridor between Sydney and Melbourne, but should be part of the main line.
"The ACT government has also been in discussions about changing the proposed corridor through the ACT, incorporating the Canberra stop at the airport rather than tunnelling through Mount Ainslie.
"We will continue to work with the federal government on these proposals."
Federal Labor MP for Canberra Gai Brodtmann also expressed her enthusiasm for the project on Friday.
"A study conducted by the former Labor government in 2013 found that high speed rail could carry 84 million passengers each year, with express journey times of just 64 minutes between Sydney and Canberra," Ms Brodtmann said.
"A high speed rail link would revolutionise interstate travel for Canberrans."
The Business Council of Australia urged state governments to heed the advice of Infrastructure Australia and get serious about setting land aside for big nation-building projects.
"This report demonstrates that if governments have the foresight to plan ahead and reserve corridors for future infrastructure use, they can realise huge savings when those infrastructure projects are ultimately rolled out," the council's chief executive Jennifer Westacott said on Friday.
