The home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, has sought to block federal funding for a Gold Coast light rail expansion that would run directly past an investment property she co-owns with her husband. Last week Andrews wrote an open letter to residents of the Gold Coast suburb Palm Beach saying she had requested federal urban infrastructure minister Paul Fletcher oppose any federal funding for the fourth stage of the city’s light rail project – a proposed extension from Burleigh Heads to Coolangatta.
The move – on the cusp of a federal election – ended bipartisan support for the three previous stages of the light rail, and prompted an angry response from the long-serving Gold Coast mayor, Tom Tate, who declared: “I have never been this disappointed in the political arena.”
In her letter to residents, Andrews said she had written to Fletcher to ask “no federal funding be directed to this project as it stands”.
