Steve Thomas pushes Rita Saffioti for Tier 3 rail answers

Transport Minister Rita Saffioti has provided scant detail of the business cases to State Parliament despite persistent attempts by the Opposition to find out more.

Over 18 months and on 11 separate occasions, South West Liberal MLC Steve Thomas (pictured) has sought information on the progress of the Tier 3 business cases and whether they have been submitted to Infrastructure Australia, as was intended.

Mr Thomas claims he has not received "a single real answer" from Ms Saffioti.

Built in the early 1900s, the Tier 3 grain lines, along with the rest of the State's freight rail system, were privatised and transferred to a private operator in 2000.

Now held by Arc Infrastructure, the Tier 3 lines were closed in 2013 and 2014 on the basis they were no longer commercially viable.

However in recent years, with increasing road freight costs and wear and tear on local grain roads, there has been strong graingrower and local community sentiment supporting repairing and reopening the Tier 3 lines.

The State government committed to develop business cases for reopening three of the lines - Quairading to York, Kulin via Yilliminning to Narrogin and Kondinin via Narembeen to West Merredin - after releasing an independent engineering assessment outlining estimated costs of restoring each section of Tier 3 line in September 2020.

Estimated costs put forward for business case preparation were $110.91 million for Quairading-York, $164.41m for Kulin-Narrogin and $210.67m narrow gauge or $238.08m standard gauge for Kondinin-West Merredin.

Ms Saffioti told parliament in March this year three business cases had been finalised and were "soon expected to be submitted to Infrastructure Australia".

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She said in line with Infrastructure Australia processes, "an evaluation summary of the business case would be made publicly available once the assessment was complete".

Since then she has not responded to questions regarding the business cases or summaries being made available.

In May Ms Saffioti announced $72m of joint State and Commonwealth funding from the Stage 1 $200m Agricultural Supply Chain Improvements Program, for the southern Wheatbelt region to progressively recommission the Narrogin-Kulin line.

"This started as a debate on three closed Tier 3 rail lines and whether they could be re-opened, but it is now about McGowan government accountability," Mr Thomas said.

"Ms Saffioti promised the business cases way back in September 2020, in a media release entitled 'Business case to be prepared for Tier 3 grain lines'.

"In that release she identified three closed lines that would be first for business case development.

"More than two years have gone by since the government started work on those business cases and not one business case has been delivered.

"Worse, the government has stopped answering questions about where the business cases are.

"I suspect that Ms Saffioti is so embarrassed by the business cases that they are to be hidden away forever to hide that embarrassment," he said.