Plans for a $90 billion high-speed rail line between Sydney and Newcastle have moved a step closer to becoming reality after three international consortiums were shortlisted to design the most challenging section from the Central Coast to north of Hornsby.

Amid deep community scepticism about the project, the shortlisted consortiums will now compete to develop designs for 35 kilometres of twin tunnels and a new high-speed station at Gosford, which would be more akin to an airport terminal than a traditional train station for passengers.

The ambitious project’s two-year development phase is aimed at firm costs, designs and program schedules to be handed to the federal government by mid-2028 – shortly before the next national election – allowing it to then make an investment decision on whether to proceed.

High Speed Rail Authority chief executive Tim Parker said the shortlisting would enable a preferred bidder to be selected quickly if the government gives final approval, followed by a 10-year time frame to build the first section.

“This is the largest investment ever by government in this type of project. Often people say, ‘Oh, we’re just doing more studies’. We’re not. We’re actually going into a proper procurement,” said Parker, a former Sydney Metro senior executive.

“Sydney Metro was definitely a city-changing project. This has the potential for being a nation-changing project. It’s almost Sydney Metro on steroids, with respect to the impact it could have if we proceed.”

The alignment from the Central Coast to Sydney’s northern fringe is easily the most challenging section because it passes under the Hawkesbury River and hilly terrain covered by national park.

An expression of interest for an advanced manufacturing facility to be built somewhere along the proposed corridor will also be released next month. If the government approves the project, the facility will be used to manufacture components for the high-speed rail line.

“What we’re looking to try to do is, in essence, create a kit of parts for high speed, so that in future we’re not redesigning everything again and again,” Parker said.

A new station at Gosford – one of four between Newcastle and the Sydney CBD – would have four platforms.

Parker said high-speed rail stations would be “more like an airport than a railway station” in that passengers would not be waiting for their train on a platform.

“It will be an area probably a bit more relaxed where you’re sitting around, waiting. You get called to a gate ... and then you go down to the platform,” he explained.

“We’re not designing just for Newcastle to Sydney. The stations have to be able to cater for much bigger traffic [for trains to run between Brisbane and Melbourne] in the future, once this line is fully operational.”

The tender process for the manufacturing facility will run in parallel with the design work for the 35-kilometre section from Ourimbah, north of Gosford, to Berowra.

The three consortiums shortlisted for design work for the Central Coast-Berowra leg comprise Spanish company Acciona and Chinese-owned John Holland; Gamuda from Malaysia, FCC from Spain and Korean giant Samsung; and a joint venture of CPB and Ferrovial, which are both Spanish-owned, and France’s Vinci.

Each consortium will receive up to $50 million in “fee for service” for their work.

Federal Transport Minister Catherine King said the three consortiums would determine the best and most innovative ways for tunnels between Berowra and Ourimbah, while ensuring taxpayers receive value for money.

“We said we’d go metre by metre and carefully plan the first stage of high-speed rail between Newcastle and Sydney. That’s what we’re delivering with these new contracts,” she said.

Parker said a shortlisting of contractors for the so-called area package from Ourimbah to Newcastle would be held early next year. Train suppliers for the project will be shortlisted later this week.

Three other major contracts comprising high-speed train platforms and a concourse at Central Station, a new station at Broadmeadow in Newcastle, and tunnels from Berowra to the Sydney CBD, will go to tender only if final investment approval is granted in 2028.

Sydney University transport professor David Levinson warned against people getting excited that the plans would result in a high-speed train line being constructed.

“They still have to come up with the money to build the thing. Someone has to fund $90 billion,” he said. “Until they show the money it’s not real.”

The latest shortlisting comes six months after a business case put the cost of building the line from Newcastle to Central Station at $61.2 billion, and an onward leg to Parramatta and the new Western Sydney Airport at $32.4 billion.

NSW Premier Chris Minns has repeatedly ruled out the state committing funding for the project but has said his government would be willing to fast-track planning.

Commuters who endlessly circle Tallawong station looking for a car park every morning can breathe a sigh of relief after the announcement of a multi-storey car park in the area.

The north-western metro station has languished with an overflowing, single-storey car park since opening in 2019, forcing commuters to search for a spot in surrounding suburban streets.

A new multi-storey car park to fit 1100 vehicles is due to be built in the area, and the NSW government hopes its construction will help support the rapidly growing area.

Overall, the government is investing $160 million into car parks along the metro, including building another storey on the existing multi-storey car park at the Hills Showground, adding up to 100 spaces.

The car parks are intended to get cars off residential streets and ease the commute of those already taking the metro every day.

Despite commuter concerns at already overcrowded trains, the government has insisted the new parking spots will not lead to a spike in demand.

Many of the early trains from the north-west are standing room only at peak hour despite a lack of parking spots.

Last year, data showed multiple stations across the metro line had exceeded expected patronage already, with the extension between Sydenham and Bankstown yet to open.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said the parking spots were being built to meet the demand at Tallawong, where all parking spots were usually taken before 8am.

“Not enough car parks were built to cater for the demand which is now on Metro northwest, and we expect that to further increase as more people move into the area.”

“We understand this is a challenge for commuters who may have no option to drive to the station, and the 1200 additional parks should make it easier.”

Deputy Premier and Minister for Western Sydney Prue Car said commuters in the north-west “deserve better than starting off their mornings circling around for a parking spot.”

The new car spots will be integrated into Transport for NSW’s Park&Ride system, which gives commuters 18 hours of free parking each day when they catch public transport.

The investment forms part of a broader government strategy to improve commuting options for residents, including changes to bus schedules and increasing metro capacity.

Metro trains completed the first end-to-end journeys along the entire line between Bankstown and Tallawong during testing last weekend, and the long wait for the troublesome link between Sydenham and Bankstown is scheduled to end in October.

The railway has also been officially handed over to its operator, Metro Trains Sydney, and end-to-end operations will be progressively added during higher patronage periods over coming weeks in the lead-up to final trial runs and regulatory safety approvals.

The government says the south-west extension of the line will deliver capacity for an extra 17,000 people per hour during peak periods.

I'm on the hunt for the best chicken salt I can buy from Colesworth (or ALDI) for my airfryer.

Not after anything fancy or "gourmet". I want the proper fluorescent yellow, MSG-packed, fish-and-chip-shop style chicken salt that makes a bowl of hot chips disappear.

What's your favourite brand, and where do you buy it? Bonus points if it's the sort that stains your fingers yellow.

ATO staff vote-up 24%, three-year pay claim by ASU

The Australian Services Union says ATO productivity gains justify higher pay, challenging the government’s service-wide bargaining model.

Australian Taxation Office employees represented by the Australian Services Union have overwhelmingly endorsed a new claim for a wage increase of more than 8% per year — or at least 24% over three years — ahead of the imminent official commencement of the triennial Australian Public Service’s enterprise bargaining season.

The ambitious claim, which applies only to the ATO, dropped as the government prepares to issue a key document this week that will fire the official starter’s gun on the bargaining process. Known as the ‘NERR’ (notice of employee representational rights), the lodgement puts staff on legal notice that formal negotiation is about to commence.

Taxation commissioner Rob Heferen has also been sent the ASU’s set of ATO-specific claims. They contrast sharply with the Community and Public Sector Union’s service-wide bid for a wage rise of 5% a year over three years, totalling 15%.

The ASU Taxation Officers’ Branch secretary Jeff Lapidos said that “50.05% of our financial members voted. Of these, 97.9% voted YES, 2.1% voted NO,” in reference to the wage claim sent in communications to members on Monday.

“We will make arrangements with ATO People to hold our first set of all-staff, one-hour paid time Teams video meetings. The purpose of the video meetings is to explain our claims and our approach to negotiations,” Lapidos said.

“The ASU expects these procedural issues will be resolved quickly to allow the parties to get down to the difficult business of bargaining for pay increases that are significantly higher than increases in the cost of living.”

“The ASU reminds the government that the ATO has delivered substantial increases in productivity over the past decade. We expect this will continue if we get a good outcome from enterprise bargaining,” Lapidos said.

The ASU Taxation Officers’ Branch is again pushing for an agency deal between the ATO and its workforce, rather than being roped into the broader public service-wide wage deal between the CPSU and the government. The last deal was struck through pattern bargaining almost three years ago.

The then-incoming Albanese government adopted pattern bargaining, referred to as ‘service-wide bargaining’ by the Australian Public Service Commission, when it took power in 2022 and settled an agreement with the CPSU in 2023 for an 11.2% wage rise.

The ATO component of the service-wide agreement was vigorously opposed by the ASU at the time, which urged a ‘NO’ vote to enable the union to take its claim to the Fair Work Commission for a decision under the intractable bargaining provisions.

Several smaller unions representing APS and federal government employees outside the CPSU have also had longstanding problems with pattern bargaining since it was introduced in 2023.

They include the Australian Federal Police Association, whose members got stuck with the 2023 APS increase of 11.2% while other police forces raked in far bigger rises to attract new officers and secure experienced ones.

In NSW, police officers extracted pay increases of between 22.3% and 39.4% over four years in 2024.

A key argument for pattern bargaining is that all public service and federal government employees benefit from a centralised approach that is more efficient and equitable for staff who would otherwise find it hard to fight their agency-specific corner.

The counterargument is that a one-size-fits-all approach decreases APS performance and efficiency in key agencies because agencies are welded to pay points that are prevented from reflecting actual labour market conditions.

A major question is whether pattern bargaining has mis-priced some key federal agencies out of the effective labour market when it comes to uplift across service delivery and productivity. Technology and financial services skills are high on this list.

The issue is further complicated by the CPSU’s national Public Sector Union branch’s formal affiliation (unlike state branches) with the Australian Labor Party, adding to tensions when a federal Labor government is in power, given the party sets bargaining policy.

The ASU Taxation Officers’ Branch has been pursuing information on what talks have taken place between the CPSU and the Albanese government to reset bargaining policy.

Prior to pattern bargaining, each department and agency thrashed out its own wage deal with unions under an arrangement introduced decades ago.

The ASU has told the ATO it reckons that revenue its members generate for the Commonwealth, and the efficiency with which they do so, deserve recognition. It’s not an outlandish claim either, given the recent reset of negative gearing and Capital Gains Tax settings to retire substantial concessions.

“The ATO can afford to incorporate all these claims into the 2027 ATO Enterprise Agreement because ATO staff have worked with the Commissioners to deliver enormous productivity growth,” ASU Taxation Officers’ Branch Secretary Jeff Lapidos said in the preliminary log of claims sent to Tax Commissioner Rob Heferen.

“We have reduced the cost of collecting each $100 of tax and GST from 84 to 54 cents over the past 10 years. We can continue delivering productivity growth over the next 10 years.”

The top line ASU claims on remuneration outcomes look like this:

1. Salaries — 6% annual increase plus 2% catch-up each year (8% a year)
   • There is to be a 6% salary increase across the board on 1 March in each year of the next ATO enterprise agreement.
   • There will be an additional 2% annual salary increase on the same date to compensate staff for missing out on the 2% annual salary increases in 2014, 2015, and 2016, when ATO staff voted NO three times to keep our workplace rights.
2. Performance pay — 3% bonus for employees at top pay point
   • The ATO will make an annual lump sum payment of 3% of their salary to each employee who has reached and remains on the top pay point of their classification for every 12 months of fully effective performance. This percentage matches the percentage performance pay awarded to the second commissioners of taxation.
3. Re-structure of pay points — additional top pay points
   • ATO pay points need to be restructured to reflect the increased work value of ATO work.
   • There is to be a new higher pay point for each of the APS 1 to APS 6 classification levels. The current first pay point is to be removed from each of the APS 1 to APS 6 classifications.
   • There are to be two new higher pay points for the EL1 classification.
   • The ATO is to re-introduce three pay points for an EL2.2 classification for senior directors with its pay points above the current EL2 range.

The claim also canvasses ways for the ATO to retain essential corporate knowledge and memory in the face of increasing automation and reliance on information technology.

That last point, as well as most others, will not be lost on the incoming bargaining team at the Australian Public Service Commission, which has drawn extensively from the ATO’s senior ranks, as it girds itself for negotiations.

Former ATO chief operating officer Jacqui Curtis is now public service commissioner, permanently replacing Gordon de Brouwer.

Alison Stott, ATO Enterprise Strategy and Corporate Operations Group deputy commissioner, has also been seconded by the APSC to run the Commonwealth’s employer side for enterprise bargaining. Stott’s role is the equivalent of that played by Peter Riordan in the prior bargaining round.

Meanwhile, ATO assistant commissioner, HR operations, Damien Booth has been seconded to the APSC to assist negotiations between the Albanese government (represented by the APSC) and public-sector unions.

One of the most noticeable differences between those leading this round of bargaining and the last one is that the head of the APSC and its lead negotiator are both women.

As is the head of Treasury (and recipient of ATO spoils), Jenny Wilkinson, and RBA governor Michele Bullock, who is the nation’s cash interest rate-setter and chief inflation fighter.

Bargaining as usual? Let’s see what happens.

On this day 15 years ago, Darling Harbour hosted a Guinness World Record attempt for the largest saxophone ensemble. I was one of the participants and stumbled across the footage again this morning.

It’s a great little time capsule of Sydney: the old Exhibition Centre, IMAX, and the late James Valentine conducting everyone from a barge. The world record has since been beaten (as recently as last week), but it was a fun and very Sydney moment.

Curious how many others here played, watched, or remember this happening.

Cracked out the flannel pyjamas this evening, and was reminded of this song by Franciscus Henri that'd randomly pop-up on the ABC between shows every now and then.