GrainGrowers Grain Freight Supply Chain Policy
Already facing significantly comparatively higher costs of production, reducing supply chain costs presents a key opportunity to ensure Australian grain remains globally competitive and deliver savings for Australian growers.
GrainGrowers Supports:
- Increasing the capacity and efficiency of the supply chain to enhance Australia’s global competitiveness and ensure the long-term viability of the industry.
- Regulatory frameworks that support a safe, competitive and efficient supply chain.
- Increased harmonisation of road, rail and port regulation between jurisdictions that improves efficiency and reduces regulatory burden.
- Collaboration between all levels of government and the grain industry to drive productivity and efficiency improvements in the grain freight sector.
- A whole of network approach to improving Australia’s grain freight supply chain.
- Sustainable funding models to ensure the resilience and reliability of critical infrastructure.
- A collaborative approach between government and industry to identifying workforce shortages, ensuring training programs address future skills needs, and enhancing workforce diversity to address short-term and long-term requirements of the freight sector.
GrainGrowers Recognises:
- High supply chain costs have a significant and direct impact on Australian grain growers and threaten the global competitiveness of the Australian grain industry.
- Efficient and safe freight networks are vital for Australia’s grain industry.
- As Australia’s national crop size continues to grow, to capitalise on higher prices, the industry’s supply chain must ensure there is sufficient capacity to handle the volumes of grains in a timely and cost-effective manner.
- Australia’s recent record harvests have demonstrated the limitations of the current network capacity, in particular moving grain from site to port.
- Effective competition is critical for reducing supply chain costs.
- Systemic underfunding is impacting the efficiency, safety and resilience of critical regional road and rail infrastructure.
- Poor quality infrastructure is inhibiting the adoption of more efficient freight technologies.
- Regular maintenance is critical for the long-term resilience of road and rail infrastructure.
- All levels of government have a role to play in helping Australia meet its future freight needs.
- A lack of consistency across jurisdictions creates confusion and duplication, resulting in increased costs for operators.
- Regulatory harmonisation must focus on improving both consistency and efficiency.
- Government policy and regulation must be adaptive to new freight technologies and innovations.
- Increasing climate variability is having a direct impact on road and rail infrastructure and it is critical to ensure the adaptability of key freight works during and after extreme weather events.
- Embedding supply chain resilience is critical to manage supply chain disruptions.
- Ineffective land use planning is impacting the efficiency of freight operations.
- A shortage of skilled workers is impacting the productivity of the grain freight supply chain.
GrainGrowers Seeks:
- Targeted long term funding for critical regional infrastructure
- Effective regulation of monopoly infrastructure to promote competition
- Reform heavy vehicle regulation to reduce red tape for growers and improve freight efficiency
- Standardisation of rail gauges and regulation to improving rail interoperability
- Road funding reform to ensure fairer outcomes for regional infrastructure
- Improved data collection to inform future policy and decision-making
- All levels of government to incorporate the National Urban Freight Planning Principles in land use decision-making.