Ann: Advance Notice - 2022 Half Year Results, page-2

Just an update on the disastrous closure of the vital Trans Australia Railway whose track is maintained by the Australian Rail Track Corporation and which on 21 January 2021 suffered huge, almost unprecedented flooding between Port Augusta and Coondambo in South Australia.

This has meant supermarket shelves in WA are at risk of running out of some items. COL and WOW introduced purchase limits for some items.

This will be a drag on COL/WOWs' SPs as WA is a few per cent of national grocery sales, and the state imports most 'dry' grocery lines plus chilled goods like BGA yoghurt from principally Melbounr and to a lesser extent Sydney, with the vast majority arriving by rail.

One person on the WOW forum said why not send goods by ship?

There are big delays at some stevedores in Sydney and Melbourne.

https://www.anl.com.au/static/news/Attachments/Customer%20Notice%20040222.pdf

On top of that. many container ships run from a couple of days to three weeks plus late, due not just to delays in Australia but in Asia as well, plus the occasional problem of bad weather. When ships arrive, they may have to wait offshore for a berth. This is common in Melbourne, where some will be allocated a position at the Inner or Outer Port Phillip Bay anchorages, or, worse, have to wait in the unpredictable weather of Bass Strait.

Additionally, since COVID-19, container shipping lines have almost all abandoned the Australian coastal trade that used foreign-flagged, foreign-crewed vessels to carry containers mostly westbound from Sydney and Melbourne to Fremantle (Perth). As one example of their difficulties, WA Premier 'Mr McClown' did not like foreigners coming off vessels if they had COVID-19. This is in breach of the international conventions for seafarers, and a most unChristian attitude but he (like Andrews and Palascszuk in Vic and Qld) is a Labor dictator.

While the Trans Australia Railway (TAR) across the Nullarbor was supposed to be repaired after the extensive flood damage between Port Augusta and Coondambo (South Australia) within about 12 days of Friday 21 January 2022 when the flooding damage first stopped trains, it may not be reopened until 18 February 2022. Additional damage was identified, and some areas of the railway were extremely hard to gain access to as no nearby roads.

The Australian Rail Track Corporation has not updated its website since last Monday regarding a reopening date, which to me is not a good sign.

Road transport is no solution because railways' steel wheels on steel rails are seven to eight times more efficient. Trucks/B-Doubles/B-Triples are environmentally damaging and cost far more per container load across the Nullarbor. Double, or in some cases, triple the cost of Pacific National or SCT's intermodal trains per container.

Listed companies like the very good LAU (I hold) use rail a lot: LAU sends 400 containers a month across to Perth by rail, with many being 'reefers' (refrigerated). Linfox is also a big user, as are manufacturers of fast moving consumer goods in Melbourne especially, and although there's fewer supermarket goods manufactured in Sydney, its processors or manufacturers as well.

Let's hope the Federal Government allocates more funding to ARTC so contractors can further improve the vital Trans Australia Railway.