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Rudd argues case for special freight transport routes
Samantha Maiden, Online Political Editor From: The Australian January 20, 2010 4:17PM Increase Text Size Decrease Text Size Print Email Share Add to Digg Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Kwoff Add to Myspace Add to Newsvine What are these?
KEVIN Rudd has pledged to tackle a massive infrastructure backlog in Australia if he is re-elected with a big spending program to develop dedicated roads and rail networks for freight transport.

The Prime Minister and Treasurer campaigned in Adelaide's most marginal seat today, arguing one way to boost productivity is to ensure workers and business are not stuck in traffic jams with the case for dedicated transport routes for freight becoming stronger.

Despite the challenge of a $57 billion budget deficit, Mr Rudd has argued that investment in infrastructure will boost productivity and the economy and he is also exploring incentives to encourage private investment.

Reform options could include improved rail links to ports and relieving congestion between passenger and freight rail networks by building dedicated lines.

Mr Rudd said the government would release soon the third Intergenerational Report, entitled Australia to 2050: Future Challenges, which considers the key long-term challenges facing Australia over the next 40 years.

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I want to address just one part of the task ahead in the `Building Decade' that is crucial to the productivity of Australian businesses, both large and small. That is freight transport - our ability to move commodities, food, all kinds of products from one place to another in markets across the nation and across the world, Mr Rudd said.

The needs are truly staggering, but meeting the freight task isn't only about Commonwealth investment. It's also about policy coordination and reform to provide the right incentives for private sector investment as well. That's why in 2010, the transport priority for the Council of Australian Governments will be freight transport.

Mr Rudd said Infrastructure Australia was currently focusing its work on two new strategies: a National Ports Strategy and a Freight Network Plan.

Initial work by Infrastructure Australia in these areas already suggests some important principles for these strategic plans: coordination along the supply chain is a major field for productivity improvement for business; the freight network is not simply about individual road and rail projects, but a set of `nodes' that are interconnected by road, rail, sea and air `links', and the case for dedicated road and rail freight infrastructure has become stronger to minimise conflict with passenger transport and economic losses, he said.

Mr Rudd said Australia needed to lift the average productivity growth back towards the 1990s mark of 2 per cent per year, up from the 1.4 per cent that it declined to in the first decade of this century.

Achieving that goal would produce enormous benefits for the nation and for Australian families. On average, every Australian man, woman and child would be $16,000 better off a year in 2050 if productivity returns to the levels under the Hawke and Keating Governments, he said.

If this trend continues, Australia will fall further behind other nations on productivity and in the long term, on future growth and living standards. Australia's shortfall on infrastructure investment has generated a yawning gap between the infrastructure we've got and the infrastructure we need. We see this in ports, in freight, in rail, on our roads and in broadband.