The WA Labor Government has a curious habit when it comes to big decisions. When it wants something badly enough, it moves at speed. When it doesn’t, it buries the issue under consultants, reviews and “process”.
Right now, freight rail sits firmly in the second category.
In the lead-up to the last State election, Labor committed to “investigate and progress the potential buyback of the below-rail freight lease”.
Translated into plain English, that means regaining public control of the old country Westrail network privatised by the Court government a quarter of a century ago.
Privatisation of the lines was sold to a sceptical farming community — heavily reliant on its co-operative CBH to move its crops to port — as an opportunity to inject fresh capital into an ageing network, along with sharper management and lower costs.
What emerged instead was a textbook monopoly model: access charges up, investment down, and valuable assets quietly decaying while regional communities paid the price.
However, despite waves of mining booms, a doubling of grain production and growth in east–west freight, the southern half of WA still relies on a freight rail network that has barely been upgraded in decades.
More than 700km of Tier 3 lines have closed. Entire corridors have been abandoned. Major bottlenecks persist between Northam and Perth, and Perth and Bunbury, forcing more and more freight on to roads that are often simply not built for the increased heavy vehicle traffic.
The clearest evidence of this failure sits in CBH’s balance sheet. Faced with escalating access charges and declining infrastructure quality, the network’s biggest user has steadily shifted freight on to roads even with sizeable investment in a fleet of its own locomotives and wagons.
But it didn’t have to be this way. While WA has limped along with minimal investment in its freight rail network, the Eastern States have poured billions into long-haul corridors — Darwin to Alice Springs, Melbourne to Brisbane. Governments of all persuasions understand rail is essential for a nation built on bulk exports.
That is why Labor’s commitment to buy back the rail network was welcomed by growers. Not out of nostalgia for State control, but because it promised to make rail competitive again, lift bin-to-port efficiency and help exporters capture the critical January-to-June window before northern hemisphere grain floods global markets.
Twelve months on, faith is wearing thin. When challenged, the Government tells us work is under way. Consultants have been engaged. Departments are “working through the process”.
Yet there is still no timeline, no negotiation framework and no visible sense of urgency. For a government that prides itself on delivery, the silence is deafening.
West Australians know this Government can act decisively when it chooses to. Metronet did not wait for perfect modelling before billions were committed. Roe 8 was cancelled within weeks of the 2017 election, with more than a billion dollars written off almost overnight. The $250 million Fitzroy River Bridge was rebuilt in under 12 months after the January 2023 floods.
Against that record, it is hard to believe that freight rail — the backbone of the State’s export economy — is too complex to advance.
This year’s record harvest has sharpened the issue.
WA is on track for about 26 million tonnes of grain — the largest crop on record. CBH forecasts average receivals of 22 million tonnes within eight years, with peak export months exceeding three million tonnes.
By the end of the decade, 30 million tonnes is entirely plausible. Yet the rail system can handle barely 10 million tonnes a year — less than half what is needed, and over a much longer timeframe.
The consequences are visible everywhere: regional roads breaking under heavier trucks, growing reliance on overseas drivers, increased safety risks, and rising costs for farmers and local governments.
This didn’t happen by accident. As rail failed to keep up over decades of inaction, grain freight moved from eight-tonne single-axle farm trucks carting to the local CBH bin, to semis, B-doubles and now 80-tonne combinations.
If rail remains uncompetitive, the next push will be for 110-tonne triples — shifting even more cost and risk on to roads never designed for it. The Government itself acknowledges the problem. In January, Premier Roger Cook and Transport Minister Rita Saffioti argued that greater public control of freight rail would increase usage, improve road safety and deliver cost savings for industry. And they are right.
The choice is simple: invest in freight rail or keep pouring money into roads.
Either way, billions need to be spent immediately to ensure the survival of one of WA’s largest export industries and safer regional roads that local governments can afford to maintain.
Published in The Countryman and The West Australian (13/01/2026) as “Stuck behind an 80 tonne truck? Blame WA’s failing rail“
