Anthony Albanese vows to support WA Labor buying back state freight rail network

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Prime Minister was also talking up increased resilience for WA's transport routes including by rail. He's promised to back a state Labor bid to bring the freight rail network back into public hands, if re-elected.

Transcript

00:00The Prime Minister's keen to show he supports WA.

00:05Who's your favourite Premier?

00:07Roger, obviously.

00:09Using a business breakfast to announce he's backing in one of Roger Cook's key policies,

00:14pitched in light of global uncertainty.

00:17Securing Australia's future prosperity means building new economic frameworks.

00:22And it means building and planning the infrastructure that drives growth.

00:26He wants that to include WA's freight rail network coming back into public hands.

00:31The PM promising two and a half million dollars for a feasibility study

00:35to consider what role the Federal Government could have.

00:38We're prepared to take direct control of those parts of the network that the Liberals privatised

00:44including the Eastern Goldfields Railway.

00:47That line links Fremantle Port to Kalgoorlie under track run by ARC Infrastructure.

00:52To the east of Kalgoorlie the line is run by the Federal Government owned Australian Rail Track Corporation.

00:58So as soon as you come to the western side of that bridge there's a different price that rail operators have to pay.

01:04Critics say that price is too high and the line's not well enough maintained.

01:09It is crippling our industries.

01:11I'm thinking today about our grain farmers, our magnetite miners, our juniors and our senior miners.

01:17The idea of either the State or Federal Government taking back control of the network

01:21is all about making it cheaper to move anything from freight to critical minerals to grain.

01:26The big question though is what that costs the taxpayer.

01:29The State Opposition says the Government hasn't provided enough information for it to make up its mind.

01:35We just don't know enough about it at the moment.

01:38There's no business case, there appears to be no modelling for what is being proposed.

01:42Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management Elizabeth Jackson says a buyback should be money well spent though

01:48because its benefits will ripple through the economy.

01:51It's that economic story and that economic support in terms of strategic freight thinking,

01:59freight resilience to this State that really needs to be incorporated into the financial equation.

02:05And this is where governments really step up to the plate.

02:09The current owner of the WA network, ARC Infrastructure, declined to comment.

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