Western Australia's government has introduced the Rail Freight System Bill 2026 into state parliament, the legal first step in buying back the 5,500 km freight rail network privatised in 2000 and returning it to public control.

The network carries millions of tonnes of grain and minerals each year, linking the ports of Geraldton, Fremantle, Bunbury, Albany and Esperance with the state's mining and agricultural regions. A Liberal-National government sold the operation and leased the underlying track under a 49-year lease in 2000, a decision driven largely by the rail system's mounting debt. At the time, transport minister Murray Criddle said privatisation would deliver a world-class, competitive freight service.

"The new operator will help keep downward pressure on freight rates, improve service delivery and to get more freight off road and onto rail," Criddle said then.

Arc Infrastructure, a subsidiary of Canada's Brookfield, currently operates the network. The Cook Labor government is in commercial negotiations with Brookfield over the purchase, and says the proposed buyback is "not a criticism of the current owner". Brookfield has declined to comment. The government has said any transaction would cause minimal disruption to Arc's customers and staff.

Stated rationale

Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Rita Saffioti said greater public control would allow more targeted investment and increased use of the network. "It will mean more regional jobs, better support for our farmers and families, and less trucks on our regional roads," she said.

The Rail, Tram and Bus Union backs the move. "Public ownership means taxpayer dollars are reinvested into local services rather than being siphoned off as private corporate profits," WA branch secretary Josh Dekuyer said.

A central driver is the push to reopen the Tier 3 grain lines, more than 500 km of track closed controversially in 2014 and nominally placed into care and maintenance. In Bruce Rock, 240 km east of Perth, farmer Jane Fuchsbichler said the closures pushed grain onto regional roads.

"We can't continue with the present situation, local governments are getting a lot of extra challenges because of the increase in trucks and the road toll is increasing," she said.

CBH Group, the state's largest grain handler, also supports the buyback. It wants infrastructure capacity to keep pace with record harvests, after WA farmers completed a record-breaking season. In the Goldfields, stakeholders view a government takeover as the only realistic path for long-standing plans to realign the railway around Kalgoorlie-Boulder's Super Pit gold mine and to develop an intermodal facility akin to an inland port.

Cost questions

The government has not published figures for either the acquisition or the network's rehabilitation. Saffioti has described the purchase only as a "significant investment".

The condition of the Tier 3 assets compounds the uncertainty. Farmers report trees up to 3 m tall growing over the track and severely deteriorated sleepers. An independent engineering report from 2020 estimated it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to bring the line back into operation — a figure separate from the purchase price itself.

Former Pastoralists and Graziers Association president Tony Seabrook puts the total in the billions. "The state government is very reluctant to put a figure around it," he said. "Anecdotally, I've heard in the billions, and I'd say it's going to be incredibly expensive, and probably prohibitive."

Seabrook also warned that public control could add bureaucracy to a complex commercial supply chain. "I'd be very wary of this falling into the hands of government; we've seen what happened with the lamb industry when government took control of that," he said.

The government commissioned a detailed business case from Deloitte last year on the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Super Pit realignment, but has never released it.

Parliamentary position

Passage of the bill is necessary but not sufficient: the government must still demonstrate that the purchase is economically and financially responsible. WA Nationals leader Shane Love welcomed the announcement while calling for greater transparency. Shadow transport minister Steve Martin said the Coalition needs details of the deal, particularly the cost, before the party "could fully assess the proposal".

With the enabling legislation now before parliament and commercial negotiations with Brookfield under way, the scale of the bill — and any published business case — will determine whether the buyback proceeds on terms the state can defend to taxpayers and the grain and mining sectors that depend on the network.