Photo: Port of Melbourne

THE FEDERAL Government has released a refreshed National Freight and Supply Chain Strategy and new National Action Plan aimed at promoting resilience and productivity across the network.

Since the strategy was first released in 2019, Australia’s supply and freight networks have experienced significant setbacks including COVID-19, geopolitical shifts, extreme weather events, and worker shortages.

A review of the existing strategy found its foundations remained strong and recommended the strategy be refreshed with a smaller number of nationally significant actions.

The strategy sets the agenda for a collaborative approach to deliver actions by governments and industry across freight modes.

The updated strategy features four priority areas in order to support more efficient supply chains: productivity; resilience; decarbonisation, and data.

Federal Minister for Infrastructure Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Catherine King said Australia’s freight task was projected to grow 26 percent between 2020 and 2050, and that support of the sector is vitally important.

Federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King.

“Without a viable and reliable freight networks, Australia stops,” Ms King said.

“The journey of goods from farm gate, factory or port to the shopping aisle or building largely goes unnoticed, except in those rare instances where something in the supply chain goes wrong.

“As industry and consumer demands grows, it’s vital our roads, rails and ports can accommodate increasing freight movements with resilience, efficiency and emissions reduction front of mind.”

Accompanying the strategy, the new National Action Plan outlines a set of actions that government and industry will work together to deliver over the five years.

Key actions include:

• Developing a National Freight Resilience Plan to ensure a consistent and coordinated response to significant supply chain disruptions;
• Developing a Freight Infrastructure Investment Framework to guide infrastructure investment decisions in freight networks across Australia;
• Conducting safety research on batteries and zero emission power technologies for freight vehicles and locomotives as well as promoting the uptake of safety and productivity boosting technology; and,
• Modelling the current and future freight and supply chain network, to consider what is needed to support its efficiency and effectiveness into the future.

GrainGrowers supportive

The release of the documents was welcomed by national industry organisation GrainGrowers.

GrainGrowers chief executive officer Shona Gawel said efficient and reliable supply chains are critical to the success of the Australian grain industry, which depends on the ability to move large volumes of grain to both domestic and export markets.

“Over the past few years, bushfires, floods and extreme weather events have exposed significant weaknesses in Australia’s freight systems, with ageing infrastructure and fragmented regulation,” Ms Gawel said.

“To address these identified issues, the new strategy must be equipped to address every challenge at scale.”

Ms Gawel said GrainGrowers was particularly pleased to see the inclusion of resilience and decarbonisation in the update strategy, two priorities at the heart of the organisation’s National Grain Freight Strategy released in mid-2024.

She said stronger coordination in land-use planning across all levels of government was essential to protect freight corridors and support future capacity needs.

“The strategy is a step forward, but it is now critical that it delivers tangible outcomes and does not become a document that sits on the shelf.

“Real investment and coordinated action are needed to improve Australia’s freight performance and secure the competitiveness of the grain industry.”

“We look forward to working cooperatively across government and industry to achieve meaningful long-term outcomes for the Australian grains industry.”

Sources: Federal Government, GrainGrowers