CCI says second hub needed

Western Australia must begin detailed planning for a second major integrated industrial hub to ensure a smooth transition for key heavy industries after the Kwinana Industrial Area fills, says the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The Chamber made the call in a submission to the House of Representatives’ Transport and Regional Services Committee, which is investigating connectivity of ports and integration of regional roads and rail networks.

The CCI said the KIA was established soon after World War II and it still remained the state’s only heavy industrial strip.

More than 25,000 people are employed across KIA and its mix of heavy, support and infrastructure industries account for about $4.3 billion in output annually.

Although the CCI conceded opportunities for expansion remained within the KIA, the growth and needs of an increasing range of heavy industries meant they would need to be accommodated in a precinct other than KIA.

CCI’s director of policy Bill Sashegyi said the state’s next industrial hub needed to be located just south of the Peel region.

The Court Liberal Government blocked moves in the early 1990s for a go-ahead for an industrial hub in the Moore River region north of Perth. However, the CCI submission warned that WA was unlikely to match KIA’s attributes, with its longstanding comparative advantages in a single industrial precinct that incorporates linkages to the agricultural sector with Co-operative Bulk Handling’s grain silo.

It said no site existed anywhere in the South-West region that could replicate the complex integrated relationships that KIA offered.

“Included in the South West is the key triangle formed by Bunbury Port, which is central to the competitiveness of the region, Kemerton Industrial Park, and Collie, as well as the vital alumina and mineral sands developments,” CCI said.

However, the Griffin Group has unveiled plans to build a coalfired power station for a 120-hectare industrial estate at Coolangatta, near Collie, and also wants to sell electricity to Western Power under the utility’s procurement program.

Last month, Griffin signed an engineering procurement and construction contract with Mitsui & Co and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co of Japan to build the station. 

It also signed the go-ahead for a pulp mill feasibility study with Hong Kong-based ARC International of China to demonstrate Coolangatta Estate’s potential to host major energy-intensive industries.

A Department of Industry and Resources spokesman said WA had a range of world-class industrial land to suit investors, with some of these beyond metropolitan Perth.

“While most major manufacturing and service industries are in and around Perth, there are numerous heavy industrial estates in regional areas that can accommodate large-scale projects,” the spokesman said.

The CCI said: “To maximise opportunities, it is therefore essential not only that synergies within these South West industrial sites are realised, but also that synergies are realised between the sites, and between the South West region, the KIA and the wider Perth metropolitan area.”

This necessarily puts the focus on transport infrastructure between these sites to facilitate those synergies and also transport linkages with the KIA.

The CCI argued Canberra must bear more responsibility for providing infrastructure for industrial development, because it collected the main tax benefit from such projects.

“Both state and Commonwealth governments need to examine and prioritise infrastructure requirements in a transparent fashion to provide greater certainty to industry and assist in de-politicising the prioritisation process.”