A few resident whingers in the Walcha Shire Council (WSC) local government area (LGA) are attempting to shut down the New England REZ. The allegedly 20,000 petition is over-blown because there are NOT that many people living in the whole WSC LGA, so the numbers would fail on scrutiny.
Perhaps a better local use for REZ electricity would be powering electric trains, both freight and passenger, on the renovated and re-opened Great Northern Railway (GNR) to provide affordable passenger rail services for north-south public transport.
Connection with the Queensland Rail (QR) network would also be possible, either on historic route , or the preferable fresh route from Tenterfield to Legume, Acacia Ridge (on Qld border) and Beaudesert railway easement into Brisbane Terminal.
Renovating and re-opening the GNR will cost considerably LESS than changing the M1 Sydenham – Bankstown Line to the COALition misgovernment ordered foreign built Metro trains, that required the M1 Line essentially be re-built from scratch because the power pickups on the Metro carriages were too low to connect to the existing overhead power supply.
Jack Arnold
Former UNE Academic
25-jun-2026