Floods bring freight in focus

WHEN Tony Chafer heard the Fitzroy River Bridge had been destroyed by flooding in January, he immediately understood the challenge it would create for the local community.

“It was devastating,” Mr Chafer, chief executive of Wyndham port operator Cambridge Gulf, told Business News.

“I knew what the impact would be on our trade.”

Located in the Kimberley, Wyndham is about 2,200 kilometres from Perth.

That’s almost the distance from Frankfurt to Moscow.

But compared to continental Europe, the huge landmass between Perth and the East Kimberley is somewhat less populated.

For residents and businesses in the state’s north, there are few routes in or out: small airports and ports, and two sealed roads.

For many communities, the destruction of the bridge has meant the only sealed road connection is the Victoria Highway into the Northern Territory.

The Fitzroy River in December before flooding and the Fitzroy River during flooding on January 9. Photos: NASA Earth Observatory

However, the Victoria Highway was also recently temporarily closed due to flooding, briefly cutting off the East Kimberley from sealed road links entirely.

The floods serve as a reminder of the rugged isolation of Western Australia, highlighted frequently during the pandemic with bare shelves and supply chain pressures.

“It does demonstrate that the Kimberley is very vulnerable,” Mr Chafer said.

An example of the disruption was oil exports, which he said were one of the most important trades through the port, from Buru Energy’s Ungani field.

Mr Chafer said the port had not shipped oil since December 31. Similarly, the destruction of Fitzroy River Bridge will affect cattle movements, and Mr Chafer hoped a bypass option would be completed quickly.

For East Kimberley residents, it’s just the latest knock after tough travel restrictions during the pandemic, Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley president David Menzel said.

“We’re struggling to keep our morale up,” Mr Menzel told Business News.

His business is growing food, including melons, rockmelons, honeydew, pumpkins and a range of broadacre crops mostly sold in Perth.

Mr Menzel would like to see a third route out of the region – the 1,035- kilometre Tanami Road linking Hall’s Creek and Alice Springs – upgraded from a track to a sealed road capable of handling freight.

“The four shires of the Kimberley, we’ve been advocating for that one … [for] nearly six years,” he said. The shires have had some success, it appears.

According to Main Roads, work to seal the first segment of the road will start next month, with designing and planning ongoing for future segments.

The federal government says it has committed $434 million towards a total project bill of $543 million.

The project would need to be delivered over a reasonable length of time, Mr Menzel said, but would drive economic activity in the community.

Infrastructure Australia assessed a proposal by the NT government to seal about 700km of the road, up to the Western Australian border, about a decade ago.

The NT government estimated a social benefit to cost ratio of more than three.

The Tanami Road. Source: Infrastructure Australia

East Kimberley Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Claire Smith supports sealing the Tanami Road.

“There are no alternative roads,” Ms Smith said.

She estimated the distance for businesses moving freight had increased from 3,000km to about 6,000km after the flooding knocked out the Great Northern Highway route.

In late February, the state government announced a freight subsidy to help cover that additional cost, which Ms Smith said had helped local businesses keep operating. It also offered certainty.

“There was a lot of hesitancy as to whether to plan for the upcoming (growing) season,” she said.

Ms Smith said tourism businesses were also stressed, awaiting the reconnection of a low-level river crossing for the dry season.

Several bus tour operators had cancelled hotel bookings, she said.

 “Without having a road through to Broome down the west coast, people wouldn’t come here,” Ms Smith told Business News.

Member for the Mining and Pastoral Region in the Legislative Council, Neil Thomson, said the floods and destruction of the bridge had a significant impact on the East Kimberley community.

The Broome-based Liberal said the cost of freight had doubled, or in some cases tripled.

Neil Thomson. Photo: David Henry

Mr Thomson said future wet seasons would be very difficult while the government planned and built a replacement bridge.

The flood has been broadly symptomatic of supply chain problems.

“As a matter of priority, the state and federal governments should be looking at measures to fortify our logistics supply chains,” Mr Thomson said.

That should include a review of resilience across major road and rail links, he added.

In addition to sealing the Tanami Road, Mr Thomson said further projects should include the Outback Way route, which would connect Laverton in WA to Winton in Queensland.

The 2,700km road would link existing highways and seal tracks to create a road through the middle of the country.

“It’s vital federal and state governments look to fortify road and rail,” Mr Thomson said.

Both the Outback Way and the sealing of Tanami Road were reportedly delayed in the most recent budget, although Business News has confirmed they are still funded and will proceed.

Mr Thomson criticised any delay and said the issues in the Kimberley would have been significantly alleviated by the Tanami project.

Mr Thomson also called on the government to accelerate work on improving single-lane bridges in the region.

The state government planned to replace 12 single-lane bridges in the Kimberley with dual-lane bridges, Transport Minister Rita Saffioti told Business News.

“The single-lane bridge is a legacy of the way things were done in the past, but they don’t meet modern standards, nor the needs of our freight networks,” Ms Saffioti said.

Work will begin mid-year to replace three of the bridges in a $25 million project with Fortec Australia the preferred proponent, designed to withstand once-in-a-century floods.

Ms Saffioti said the recent flooding had highlighted the importance of freight resilience.

“The rebuild of the infrastructure in the Kimberley is progressing well, despite our work crews dealing with difficult conditions on the ground,” she said.

The Great Northern Highway was open to traffic between Broome and Derby, with a full rebuild to begin in the dry season, Ms Saffioti said.

Barge operations on the Fitzroy River had also begun in recent days, moving more than 1,300 passengers in the first few days.

Work on low-level crossings for a permanent connection across the river during the dry season were also progressing, while the full rebuild of the bridge would take up to two years.

Transport Minister Rita Saffioti.

The government had fast-tracked procurement and selected a consortium of Georgiou Group and BMD Constructions as preferred proponents.

Ms Saffioti said significant investment was being made into Tanami Road and Outback Way, which would help build resilience.

Shipping could also improve supply chain resilience, she said, with a report due within weeks by a state government taskforce on that topic.

In June, Infrastructure Australia identified national works for road and rail freight corridor resilience as a priority, encouraging state governments to undertake further assessment.

Work by the CSIRO has identified the state’s transcontinental rail line to have very high vulnerability.

A breakage of the track near Toodyay, for example, would increase annual freight costs by $551 million and require a huge increase in road vehicle traffic for the mining industry.

Among roads, the Brand, South Coast, Great Northern and Goldfields highways had the highest costs from potential disruptions, ranging from $10 to $600 per tonne.