Paul Murray: Labor playing Alice In Wonderland Humpty Dumpty-style word games on Kwinana port plan

When Alice wasn’t dropping down a rabbit hole into Wonderland, she was peering through novelist Lewis Carroll’s mirror to observe the foibles of the world around her. She would have loved modern Western Australia. In Carroll’s famous Through the Looking Glass, Alice comes across Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall and he engages her in a revealing conversation about the meaning of language: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean different things — that’s all.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.” Many philosophers have considered Carroll’s notion of words meaning whatever those uttering them chose to say they mean — and the consequences for the truth. Which brings us to the wonderland of the Legislative Council and a four-part question from Liberal Steve Martin to the MLC representing Transport Minister Rita Saffioti about a report by oversight agency InfrastructureWA into Labor’s Westport project at Kwinana: • Given IWA considers that large infrastructure projects are often subject to cost increases from estimates in early stages of project development, is the projected $7 billion cost of Westport achievable? • Why is the Government pushing ahead with the Westport Now proposal when the Extend Fremantle option has a significantly better cost–benefit analysis? • Are there other significant infrastructure projects that the Labor Government has undertaken for which a cost–benefit analysis has pointed to a better value option for the taxpayers of WA? • If yes, which projects are they? The Government’s preferred Westport Now option would supposedly deliver a new port by the end of the 2030s, extend Fremantle to the end of the 2040s. Martin’s question was provoked by a peculiar media release from Planning Minister Humpty Dumpty — sorry, John Carey — about the IWA report, claiming it endorsed both the Government’s Westport Now business case and its planning progressing to the next stage. As The West Australian’s Matt Mackenzie later reported, IWA did no such thing. “WA would get a better deal by delaying the $7 billion-plus Westport project for another decade, as scrutiny over the State’s infrastructure spending widens,” Mackenzie reported on the business pages. “The new harbour in Cockburn Sound is scheduled for completion in the late 2030s and will replace trade at the century-old Fremantle Port. “But a fresh report from InfrastructureWA has revealed that proposed opening date might be 10 years too soon. “The document — released just hours before the Easter long weekend — showed that a proposal to keep Freo Port running until the late 2040s ranked better than the Government’s Westport plan during assessment last year.” That clearly contradicts what Humpty Dumpty said the report said. So back to Labor MLC Samantha Rowe’s deflective non-answer to Martin on behalf of Saffioti. “IWA supports progressing the Westport Now option to the next stage of project development. The Westport Now option represents the most sensible and responsible approach for planning for the future of container trade in WA. “Recklessly stretching out Fremantle port operations for a further decade will cost at least $2.2 billion more and lead to long-term disruptions around Fremantle. “This approach also creates additional avoidable risks, including running out of capacity before the new container port is ready, and endangering WA jobs and the WA economy.” It appears Saffioti wants to be Humpty Dumpty, too. But this is what the IWA report, done at taxpayer expense to give proper advice to the government on important projects, actually says: “The cost benefit analysis results present a benefit cost ratio (BCR) of 1.96 and 2.44 for Westport Now and Extend Fremantle respectively, using a 7 per cent discount rate. The difference in the results are largely driven by a delay in capital expenditure of 10 years under the Extend Fremantle option.” For those unfamiliar with these analyses, the margin between those two ratios is considerable — the higher number being the most desirable — and would eventually mean many billions of dollars extra in economic value from the government’s non-preferred Extend Fremantle option. A discount rate is used by economists to determine the present value of future costs and benefits. It recognises that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar in the future and helps account for this when evaluating long-term projects or investments. A higher discount rate places less value on future benefits. So IWA also did another calculation. “Under a 4 per cent discount rate the BCR increases substantially to 4.04 and 4.41,” the report says. Whichever way IWA diced it, the Westport Now option — the one the government says IWA “supports” and “endorses” — comes out worst. But this is not what Labor’s two Humpty Dumpties want the public to believe that the government’s independent infrastructure adviser has told them. As Mackenzie noted in his April 25 report: “InfrastructureWA stopped short of endorsing the Westport plan, saying only the business case contained ‘sufficient information’ for a decision.” Which is completely different. So why have two ministers verballed the government’s adviser? I’ve been writing columns questioning Labor’s obsession with the hasty death of the Fremantle docks for many years and this approach to the truth is not new. As I pointed out in a column in August, 2019, then-Ports Minister Alannah MacTiernan had long advocated for an Outer Harbour at Kwinana against all credible evidence. As far back as 2007, MacTiernan was claiming a new port was needed at Kwinana by 2015 on the basis that Fremantle would have reached its optimal capacity. However, a study done for Fremantle Ports in 2014 found the existing inner harbour could handle 2.1 million containers annually — three times the load at that stage — with no replacement necessary until 2055. Nothing much has changed. Even before MacTiernan’s preposterous prediction, whenever Labor won power it did everything possible to close off any available options for the continued life of the Fremantle port. That usually involved strangling the road network leading to and from the port, such as scrapping the Fremantle eastern bypass plan in 2001 and then later wrecking the Federally-funded freight link to the docks through Roe 8 with a tunnel for trucks under the river. The result of that has been increased road congestion south of the river, an increasingly dangerous Leach Highway and Saffioti’s recent revelation of year-long gridlock on Stirling Highway as the Fremantle traffic bridge is replaced. The freight tunnel under the Swan River would have been completed by this decade, but the election of State Labor in 2017 saw the already-started project scrapped and the emergence of Westport. The relentless narrowing of the policy options by Labor leading to only one possible future harbour proposal is often forgotten in this debate. The timelines between the two Westport options examined by IWA need to be clearly understood as stated in the report: • Westport Now — build and fully transition operations to Kwinana as the Fremantle Inner Harbour reaches capacity (without major investment). The business case assesses a delivery timeframe with completion in the late 2030s. • Extend Fremantle — Invest in the existing Fremantle Port precinct to increase capacity and extend the operating life by approximately 10 years. After which Westport would then be delivered and container trade transitioned once the revised capacity at Fremantle Port is reached (approximately 10 years after Westport Now). The business case assesses a delivery date of Westport in the late 2040s. The IWA report also notes that a third option “was excluded as part of a strategic merit test in the business case”. That option was to build and commence operations at Westport as the Fremantle Inner Harbour reaches capacity, with both ports operating concurrently for 10-12 years prior to a full transition to Westport. Why that sensible plan was scrapped has never been revealed. Strategic merit? Once again, an option was axed because it doesn’t suit Labor’s agenda. IWA also pointedly notes “existing environmental approval uncertainties” because of Cockburn Sound’s sensitive ecology. “These approvals will determine whether the project will proceed, and under what conditions.” Apart from these collected inconvenient truths that the Cook Government is trying to hide, the IWA report touches on another very vexed question: where will the workers come from to build Westport? Our labour shortages, how slowly they are being remediated after the pandemic and how disastrous the projections are over a wide range of trades are well known. The IWA report politely bells the cat that rushing into Westport risks draining the available workforce at the expense of private sector projects before it has had time to recover: “Westport construction is proposed at a similar time to multiple other large scale infrastructure proposals, which may have implications for Government, public sector and market capability and capacity to deliver.” And critics thought Metronet was bad.