WA Transport Minister still quiet on reopening of Tier 3 rail lines, four years after business cases promised

Transport Minister Rita Saffioti won’t say whether she will ever seek Federal funding to fix any of WA’s Tier 3 rail lines, four years after raising farmers’ hopes she would chase at least $500 million. Instead, the WA Government has completed a “recommissioning study” examining just one of the lines, the contents of which and purpose of remain shrouded in secrecy. Countryman submitted nearly a dozen questions to the Ms Saffioti’s office ahead of next month’s Federal Budget but received little clarity on any funding efforts for the Tier 3 lines. Farmers hoped at least three of the lines would be reopened after a report released in 2020 found it would cost $1.09 billion to repair, upgrade and reopen all 509km of the Tier 3 lines. The report — commissioned by the State Government — identified three priority lines to potentially upgrade first: Quairading to York, Kulin to Narrogin, and Kondinin to West Merredin. At the time, Ms Saffioti said the State Government was considering preparing business cases to try and secure nearly $500m in Federal Government funding to reopen those three lines. A media release dated September 24, 2020 — titled “Business case to be prepared for Tier 3 grain lines” — said the three lines would be the first of any Tier 3 “upgrade proposals”. It said the three lines would be “considered for business case preparation”, with farmers widely believing three separate business cases would be submitted to Infrastructure Australia. However, a spokesman for Ms Saffioti’s office this week confirmed there was “not a business case” for any of the lines but the State had finished a recommissioning study announced in May 2023. The study aimed to examine the “economic impacts and costs associated” of recommissioning sections of the Tier 3 Narrogin-Kulin-Wickepin rail lines. Ms Saffioti’s office did not answer questions about whether business cases or recommissioning studies would be completed for the Quairading to York line or the Kondinin to West Merredin line. “The Government has completed the Narrogin-Kulin-Wickepin Tier 3 recommissioning study,” a spokesman said. “The study was undertaken to provide clarity on the engineering, economic and network potential of recommissioning sections of the Tier 3 Narrogin-Kulin-Wickepin rail lines. “The outcomes of the study are currently being assessed by Government and announcements will be made in due course.” Subject to the study’s findings, $72 million has been allocated towards the recommissioning of the Narrogin-Kulin-Wickepin lines as part of the WA Agricultural Supply Chain Initiative program, or WAASCI. CONFUSION GRAINS Liberal MLC Steve Thomas has questioned Ms Saffioti’s statements to Parliament after quizzing the minister on the Tier 3 business cases for the 10th time in two years, during question time. “The question I asked (in WA Parliament) was ‘have you finished these Tier 3 business cases?’ And the answer was ‘the work is complete’,” he told Countryman. According to Hansard, Ms Saffioti replied: “Work in relation to the potential reactivation of selected Tier 3 rail lines has been completed and is currently being considered by Government.” This work is believed to solely include the recommissioning study examining the Kulin to Narrogin line, potentially torpedoing eastern Wheatbelt farmers’ hopes the Quairading to York or Kondinin to West Merredin could receive funding to reopen. “The timing is now urgent because we have both a Federal pre-election budget and a State pre-election budget being tied down now,” Mr Thomas said. “If that investment doesn’t come now, I don’t think it’s going to come.” TUNNEL VISION The Kulin to Narrogin tracks are believed to be favoured by the State Government for its ability to be used to also cart export hay and products from the fledgling WA Kaolin mine near Wickepin. Countryman’s request for a copy of the recommissioning study was knocked back by Ms Saffioti’s office this week. The Narrogin-Kulin and Narrogin-Wickepin lines, totalling 120km and once used to cart grain for export at either Kwinana or Albany, share the first 20km of track before splitting. The 2020 engineering assessment — by Agonis Group and Jacobs Australia — determined reopening the lines would cost $164.41m, but that figure would likely have ballooned due to inflation. A CONVOLUTED HISTORY The Tier 3 lines were closed by the Barnett government and WA rail lessor Arc Infrastructure in 2014 on the grounds they were no longer commercially viable. Their closure led to what some farmers have called a “trucking hell”— generating an estimated additional 30,000 truck movements on country roads each year. Hopes of reviving the lines were reignited in March 2020 when Ms Saffioti commissioned the independent engineering assessment. The report was released that September, two months after the State Government revealed its Revitalising Agricultural Region Freight Strategy, which identified a list of prioritised rail and intermodal projects across WA including the Tier 1 and 2 networks, which are still in use. The report outlined the cost of restoring each section of the Tier 3 network, revealing the lines were in a “variable condition”, and every section would need to be upgraded before being reopened. Ms Saffioti later announced the State Government was preparing a stage-two business case to submit to Infrastructure Australia to secure more funding for the WAASCI program, after securing $160m from the Federal Government in September 2021. The State Government also tipped $40m to bring the total to $200m for stage one of the WAASCI program, with works on those projects starting in late 2022, including upgrading rail sidings at 11 of CBH’s grain bins in a bid to speed up the transport of grain to port. About 60 per cent of WA’s annual harvest is moved to port by rail each year, and the rest by road. Farmers in the eastern Wheatbelt, who pay the highest freight rates to CBH in the State, have long called for the Tier 3 lines to be re-opened.