Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It always good to follow the member for Grayndler. I know he has deep interest in my electorate in Swan as he visited it many times over his period in government. Just letting him know before he leaves the chamber—naturally we will be opposing the pious amendment that you have tabled.

This was supposed to be a noncontroversial bill, the Railway Agreement (Western Australia) Amendment Bill, that I rise to contribute to in this debate. As I said, I acknowledge the amendment. We will not be supporting it and I will speak to the original bill. I will get to some of the comments made by the member for Grayndler later in the speech.

We all know how important rail and transport is particularly to a remote state like Western Australia. I know myself that when I moved to Perth in the November 1981 I transferred by rail. Actually I hitchhiked from Melbourne to Adelaide and then caught the train from Adelaide to Perth, which took me on the longest stretch of straight railway track in the world—478 kilometres across the Nullarbor Plain. Unfortunately at that stage I had just come out of an apprenticeship and was struggling, so I did the sit-up—and not in one of the A-class carriages.

We all are aware that Australia has suffered delays due to the changing gauges on our rail system. If I had travelled on that particular rail some years earlier there might have been further delays due to the changing of gauges.

This bill taps into Australia's federal history and perhaps even the rationale for Federation of this country. As the colonies of Australian united to form a Commonwealth in 1901, one of the major impediments to trade linkages was the huge variety of railway gauges across the continent. In 1921 there was a royal commission into this very problem, which recommended the standardisation of gauges. The Commonwealth has led the charge on the standardisation issue since, funding the majority of standardisation works and lending money to the states to complete their share of the project.

This is what happened in Western Australia with the Kalgoorlie-Perth line, when in 1961 Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies sought the approval of the parliament for an agreement between the Commonwealth and Western Australian governments relating to the standardisation of the Kalgoorlie-Fremantle-Kwinana line of the Western Australian Railways. In 1960 the federal government, led by Menzies, had begun to lift the federal embargo on iron ore exports, and as the potential for iron ore mining grew so did the need for railways with the capacity to transport large volumes of iron ore quickly. The narrow-gauge railway that existed on parts of the line between Kalgoorlie and Perth would have been unable to do so.

The Railway Agreement (Western Australia) Act 1961 allowed for partial Commonwealth funding of the standardisation of gauges between Kalgoorlie and Perth. This standardisation would have allowed modern trains carrying heavier loads and travelling at greater speeds to transport iron ore from the resource-rich goldfields to refineries in Kwinana and ports in Fremantle. The standardisation allowed the Kalgoorlie to Perth freight times to be reduced from 31 hours to 13 hours and passenger train times from 14 hours to 8 hours.

The Kewdale freight terminal is in my electorate in Swan, and it plays an important part in the economy in Western Australia. The importance of the Kewdale freight terminal is vital as, prior to the road across the Nullarbor being sealed back in 1976, the line was probably the major route for transporting goods from the eastern states to Western Australia and from Western Australia back to the eastern states. This particular freight terminal had an offshoot which ran right past my first office as a businessman, back on Anvil Way in Welshpool. It was good to hear the trains going past all the time and realising the importance of the railway lines in Western Australia—in our vast state.

The Australian government, through its 2014 budget, has invested $3.6 billion in rail projects. The investment includes $1.6 billion in freight rail and intermodal projects, including the Advanced Train Management System trial, as well as intermodal projects at Melbourne, Sydney and Perth; rail revitalisation in Tasmania; work at improving lines in Adelaide; and port-rail connections in Sydney and Perth.

The standardization of the Kalgoorlie-Perth line allowed for the removal of the break of gauge on the Trans-Australian Railway, which runs across the Nullarbor Plain from Port Augusta in South Australia to Kalgoorlie. The Trans-Australian Railway remains an important freight route between Western Australia and the eastern states. Sir Robert Menzies noted that the new rail line would be of great value to the Western Australian economy, and the Commonwealth committed to fund 85 per cent of the project, which following the transition from the pound sterling to the Australian dollar, and the allocation of additional funds for the project in 1971, amounted to $106,250,000.

The bill we are debating today allows the Western Australian government to repay the outstanding amount of the loan for this project, $1.6 million. This change is necessary as the act currently does not allow for early repayment of the loan, with the final payment scheduled for 2041. Essentially, this bill is about reducing red tape, a pursuit the coalition is remains committed to, despite an early repayment resulting in the Commonwealth forgoing interest revenue of up to $300,000.

The history of rail projects in the Eastern Goldfields region of Western Australia extends far beyond 1961, and as far back as the late 1890s. In 1894 the Northam Line was extended to Southern Cross, and later in 1896 to Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie, connecting the Goldfields to Perth and creating what became known as the Eastern Goldfields Line. The replacement standard gauge line, which the original Railway Agreement (Western Australia) Bill provided funding for was opened in 1968.

As Menzies noted in 1961:

The construction of the line is in itself a project of the first importance, but even more important is the part which the project as a whole will play in the development of Australia's resources, the increasing of export; …

Menzies could not have been more correct about the importance of this project to both the Western Australian and the Commonwealth economies.

This standardised line, operating today as a part of the Eastern Goldfields Railway, remains the main freight supply link in the state and playing a key role in supporting export-orientated industries. The Eastern Goldfields Railway is also responsible for a majority of Western Australia's interstate freight movements.

In 2010 the Western Australian Department of Transport report entitled Western Australia regional freight transport network plan stated that it was expected that on this line 17 million tonnes per annum would be moved from Koolyanobbing to Kalgoorlie, boosted by mining exports destined for the port of Esperance. It also noted that passenger, country and interstate trains, including the major tourist icon, the Indian Pacific, operate on parts of the line.

The foresight of Prime Minister Menzies and Western Australian Liberal Premier Sir David Brand to invest in such an ambitious redevelopment of Western Australia's transport rail and to encourage investment in iron ore mining has undoubtedly assisted the state and, indeed, our nation in becoming one of the largest exporters of iron ore in the world. Unlike the mining tax, which obviously shackles the mining industry, this was implementation by a federal and a state government actually to enhance the economy and the mining industry in Western Australia. It is a shame that the vision and zest with which Prime Minister Menzies and Premier Brand approached the standardization of the Kalgoorlie to Perth line is not shared by those opposite.

As I said before, I will come back to the member for Grayndler on his comments. I listened to the speech of the member for Grayndler and I will make a couple of points about what he said. I think the first is that the former minister has once again showed his lack of visionary thinking when it comes to infrastructure. I did notice also that he attacked the Prime Minister at the time when he released his book, Battlelines. He severely hopped into him during that time. But one of the things you need to have when you critique people and give them a bit of a slap in this place is some sort of credibility. I noticed there was an article in the Urbanist, which is part of The Guardian, by guest writer Anthony Albanese. He was not asked to write that; he actually rang them and asked if he could put a piece on their website. He certainly was not invited, but he wrote it. One of the things he says in the article is:

But the public transport projects were funded in a Labor budget that was also designed to return to surplus in the same length of time that Mr Abbott says he will deliver a surplus.

Can you believe that?

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