Tier 3 lines

25th May 2023

Either the spin doctors in Rita Saffioti’s office have lost the plot or the Minister for Transport herself has.

That’s the only conclusion I can draw from the media release they put out on the 25th of May announcing yet again a study on the possible re-opening of one tier three freight line in the wheatbelt.

I say this because we have seen this announcement before, yet nothing has happened.

In September 2020 the Minister announced to us all that three Tier 3 lines would have business cases completed.

The business cases for those three lines – the Quairading to York line, the Kulin to Narrogin line and the Kondinin to Merredin line – were to following the engineering review report done by the independent Agonis Group and released by Minister Saffioti on the 24th of September 2020.

That review had some estimated costs, which came in at $111 million, $164 million and $211 million respectively.

Three years later Minister Saffioti has announced a study of tier 3 freight lines is moving ahead, with specific reference to the Narrogin-Kulin-Wickepin line.

No mention of the studies already done, and no mention of the other lines which so far seem to have been ignored.

Just a reannouncement of a reduced version of the same study after three years of delay and obfuscation. 

Someone must have been embarrassed to have to push the send button on that one.

But what has been the result of those three wasted years?

As can be seen in virtually every other major project in the state costs and timeframes have blown out, according to the Government thanks to labour shortages and increases in the cost of materials.

And it is not just in the METRONET project, which has gone from $3 billion to $11.5 billion.

The Bunbury Outer Ring Road started as a $700 million cost estimate and went to an $852 million business case in 2018. 

That project has now blown out by half a billion to $1.352 billion during the time Rita Saffioti has messed bout not delivering the Tier 3 business cases. That’s a blowout of half a billion dollars for  less than 20 kilometres of road. 

What will the Tier 3 business case blowout be over the same time?

The other result of wasting three years is that we have moved from a federal government looking to invest in WA infrastructure to the new Albanese Government which is looking to cut back the infrastructure investment to try to help balance the federal budget.

In other words, messing about for three years may well mean the State has missed the opportunity for federal co-funding.

Those Tier 3 line business cases should have been completed and sent to Infrastructure Australia for assessment years ago.

 The net result of three years of inaction is that costs have skyrocketed and our co-investment partners are cutting back.

Hardly a good investment strategy.

If the Minister doesn’t want to re-open those lines , perhaps because the business cases don’t add up, then she should have the decency to tell the agricultural community.

Then we can talk about alternative investment in the road network needed to make country roads safer for the people driving on them.

But having done nothing for three years the Minister cannot double down by doing nothing more.

At the very least she can show some honesty and make the latest commissioned business case public as soon as it is finished, so at least we will know what we are looking at.

That’s the least we should expect.