Mark Bailey insisted there were no delays on the long promised project to ease congestion on the Sunshine Coast, one of the state’s fastest-growing regions and which will host four 2032 Olympics venues.

A $6 million scoping and costing study for the 37km passenger branch line between Beerwah and Maroochydore is due to be completed later this year.

The line will link the steadily growing Sunshine Coast to the main north-to-south rail line, and could provide a transport link between three 2032 Olympic venues three venues and an athletes’ village precinct.

However, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk sidestepped a question about whether the project would be completed in time for the Games.

“Well, we are looking at the priorities that are needed for the Games but of course, this is a growing area of the Sunshine Coast,” she told reporters on Monday.

“So we will be working very closely once we see that study, and it’s very good that we put the money aside for that study.”

Sunshine Coast Mayor Mark Jamieson as well as federal and state opposition MPs have raised concerns the line will be completed within nine years, saying the government is running out of time to break ground.

The line would link the southeast with a planned Sunshine Coast Indoor Sports Centre, which is set to host the Olympic Basketball preliminary games.

It could also provide transport to the upgraded Sunshine Coast Stadium, which is hosting the football preliminaries, the Sunshine Coast Mountain Bike Centre and a satellite village in Maroochydore that will host 1400 athletes and officials.

Mark Bailey said the scoping study would be very seriously considered but they were not going to succumb to “hysteria from the LNP”.

He said the opposition had raised the same concerns in the lead-up to the 2018 Commonwealth Games, saying Labor’s transport plan wouldn’t work.

Transport during that event was “superb”, the minister said, with light and heavy rail working seamlessly together and would be the same during the upcoming Olympics.

“There’s been no delays (on the Sunshine Coast rail) whatsoever,” Bailey added.

“Let me just say it was a very disappointing (newspaper) report that came out this morning.

“They didn’t run most of my lines in response to a story of two lazy LNP MPs out there who have achieved nothing on heavy rail for the Sunshine Coast, and who are now struggling with the deprivations of opposition.”