MINISTER for infrastructure and transport Catherine King said the government is “undertaking a look at the freight and supply [chain] strategy”.
The minister was speaking at the AFR Infrastructure Summit on Tuesday (14 November) when she said the government was looking at two freight and supply-chain issues presently.
“[We’re] seeing how it has been working, what we need to do, and what are the settings … post-covid and what we might need to change,” she said.
She said through the Australian Rail Track Corporation, the government owns a large portion of the freight rail network.
“That is really struggling with maintenance, investment and building resilience,” she said. “So, we’re doing some work with that at the moment.”
Also, Ms King said the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics is looking at freight resilience overall.
“It’s done its first phase of work and its second phase of work,” she said.
“It will be … alongside Infrastructure Australia, advising us about where are the freight networks where there are risks associated with climate change in particular that we need to have further investment in. That will be part of the advice that comes to government about where our investments go.”
