A NUMBER of farmers and State Government representatives have come forward and said the recent Strategic Grain Network Committee (SGNC) meeting wasn't altogether a waste of time as Narembeen farmer Bill Cowan suggested last week.
In response to Mr Cowan's comments in last week's Farm Weekly, Western Australian Local Government Association (WALGA) deputy president, Wickepin shire president and SGNC member Steve Martin said local governments were concerned with the effect any extra freight would have on their already under-funded road network and the meeting provided a good forum to discuss such issues.
"WALGA's position remains that no grain freight should move from rail to road unless the State Government is willing to pay for the cost of that shift," Mr Martin said.
"It's fair to say some local governments don't want the grain to move off rail at all.
"The local government sector is concerned with some of the costings used for upgrading and maintaining the local road network in the original Strategic Grain Network Review."
He said WALGA had gone back to the sector and looked closely at which roads would be used and what it would cost to upgrade and maintain that network.
"That work is nearly complete and we are ready to present it to the State Government once it has been endorsed by WALGA," he said.
"Our approach has also been to attempt to map a more strategic path for the grain to take from bin to port and from bin to bin.
"The State Government has limited funds to put to this task and we want to make sure they come up with an integrated road-rail network that will meet the needs of the grain freight task for the next 50 years."
Mr Cowan said WA might only be one crop away from producing a 20 million tonne crop and if that was the case WA's transport sector would be in serious trouble.
"WALGA's report gave nothing substantial," he said.
"The report had no numbers in it at the meeting.
"If a small group of farmers can do all the running around and put together some rough figures without getting paid, then I'd at least be expecting some figures from WALGA."
Mr Cowan said he wanted everyone involved to be honest and the situation needed to be "stirred up".
"As far as I'm concerned WALGA isn't doing its job for local authorities and even if they've collected the information, they haven't collated it," he said.
"The only one that has been honest throughout the whole thing is WestNet Rail and it has given us all the information and numbers we've needed.
"It has been forthcoming and provided us figures on request."
Mr Cowan said WestNet Rail charged a $2.73/t rail access fee to get grain from Narembeen to Merredin and CBH charged $3.50/t just to unload a train.
"They don't charge anything to unload a truck so there's certainly bias against the rail system," he said.
We've just isolated the Tier 3 lines to make a point."
Mr Cowan also said he thought the majority of the rail network was under threat but only singled out the suffering Tier 3 lines to make a point.
