Premier Roger Cook says State ownership of WA freight rail network would benefit Great Southern community

The Premier has touted the Great Southern as the big winners of Labor’s plan to bring WA’s freight rail network into State control, flagging financial benefits for the agriculture sector and community safety. Roger Cook flew to Albany to back in the election promise, which was first announced by Transport Minister Rita Saffioti on January 23. “The WA freight rail network was privatised by the Liberals and Nationals in the early 2000s — it was a bad deal then and it is a bad deal now,” he said. “It’s a handbrake on our agriculture, it’s a handbrake on our economy. “We want to support Great Southern farmers by reducing their costs and get their grain to port more efficiently, which is why bringing freight rail back in-house is so important.” Arc Infrastructure has held the lease on all 5500km of the State’s freight rail network since 2000, with another 24 years left on its contract. Mr Cook said there would be “complex” negotiations with the transport infrastructure manager if his Government was re-elected on March 8. He listed decreased road congestion and damage from trucks as additional benefits to the broader Great Southern community. “(Freight rail privatisation) means our roads become unsafe as they become more congested, and vehicle traffic is sharing the road with increasing truck traffic,” he said. “But it also means greater cost to the WA taxpayer as we spend more money continuing to maintain our roads that are suffering under the damage of increasing truck movements.” This is the State Government’s latest move to remove trucks travelling to and from the Port of Albany from local roads, with the $225 million ring road/Menang Drive also built to serve this purpose.