Tier 3 lines Countryman

25th May 2023

What on earth is going on in the office of the Minister for Transport Rita Saffioti’s office?

I wonder if they have overdosed on episodes of Yes Minster or Utopia?

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 this is not the first time this announcement has been made, yet so far nothing has happened.

In September 2020 the Minister put out a media release to tell us that three Tier 3 lines would have business cases completed.

Those lines included on the list as the first upgrade proposals being considered for business case preparation were:

• the Quairading to York line, estimated to cost $111 million,

• the Kulin (via Yillimining) to Narrogin line, estimated to cost $164 million,  and 

• the Kondinin (via Narembeen) to West Merredin line, at an estimated cost of at least $210 million.

These lines were identified by an engineering review report called the “Tier 3 Grain Lines Engineering Review Report” done by the independent Agonis Group and released by Minister Saffioti on the 24th of September 2020.

Three years later, in admission of complete failure to date, Minister Saffioti has announced a new study “to provide clarity on the engineering, economic and network potential of recommissioning sections of the Tier 3 Narrogin-Kulin-Wickepin rail lines”.

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

The release of the 245th of May 2023 is simply a reannouncement of a cut down version of the same study after three years of delay. 

I think after that level of inaction the Minister should have been too embarrassed to send the release out.

And what have those three wasted years given us?

Blowouts in virtually every other major project in the state, with massive increases in project costs and timeframes.

Naturally the Government has blamed labour shortages and increases in the cost of materials, which in many cases is true, and in some cases possibly even fair and reasonable.

Such cost explosions are not just in the METRONET project, which has gone from $3 billion to $11.5 billion.

A better example is the Bunbury Outer Ring Road, which started as a $700 million estimate of costs 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 same time that Rita Saffioti has promised but not delivered the Tier 3 business cases, representing a half a billion dollar blowout for  less than 20 kilometres of road. 

It’s got me wondering how big the blowout will be for the Tier 3 business cases.

The other outcome of not doing anything for 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.

Those Tier 3 line business cases should have been completed and sent to Infrastructure Australia for assessment years ago, but we have missed that boat.

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

So the outcome of the Government’s three years of inaction is that costs have skyrocketed and our co-investment partners are trying to reduce their spending.

If Rita Saffioti doesn’t want to re-open the Tier 3 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 kicking the can down the road without a decision is utterly unacceptable.

This latest business case is supposed to take three months.

Why have we waited three years for it to start when we could have had it by the end of 2020?

Let’s have some honesty from the Government, who should make this newly commissioned business case public as soon as it is finished, so at least we will know what we are looking at.

That’s the very least we should expect.