3.2 Regions and Prospects

The South West has a quality road network that has benefited from upgrades to the Collie Highway and ongoing Bunbury Outer Ring Road (BORR) works with associated duplication of the Bussell Highway. BORR planning works with the 1350ha Waterloo Industrial, links Kemerton, Bunbury Port and services the timber precinct as well as facilitating the smooth flow of traffic to the Capes.

A future bottleneck is likely to be the Busselton Bypass which will require duplication. That will service Yalyalup Industrial Park close to Busselton-Margaret River Airport and go to the South of Vasse Newtown to Carbanup in 15-20 years. Before that, the Vasse-Dunsborough link will require enhancement and grade separation works are likely to be needed on the main Forrest-Bussell Highway corridor. Additional passing points will be necessary on the South Western Highway.

The main Perth-Bunbury line (Claisebrook-Picton) line has been close to capacity for some time, particularly from Brunswick to Picton where freight from Worsley and Collie join the line to Bunbury Port and contribute to 40 movements per day. There remain limitations on containers and constraints due to the lack of standard gauge tracks (21-tonne axle loads). Long term growth at Kemerton would also benefit from a rail spur to service investment.

Investigations into the re-establishment of the Greenbushes rail line are ongoing and increasingly positive as minerals prices stabilise. The proposal has also been boosted with plans to electrify the train. Standard gauge rail options might also generate more freight opportunities.

The port operates across the Inner and Outer Harbours, although management of the southern section of the latter has been handed to the WA Department of Transport. This will free up land for integration into the Bunbury Waterfront project over the coming decade. A study on Berths 1 and 2 is exploring future options and may include offshore wind farm servicing.

The Inner Harbour features 400ha of quality and available development land with potential to accommodate overflows from Kwinana and Fremantle. Bunbury Port has broken records for throughput every year, excepting the GFC, since it was founded in 1864. Port traffic has steadied to about 17-18mtpa.

While the Westport Taskforce recommendations on container options focused on Perth, about 30,000 TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units) are now generated in the South West each year. Pressures on the Western Trade Coast has maintained interest in Bunbury as a roll on/off (ro-ro) port.

Regionally, the port has a critical role in facilitating trade and servicing the resources sector which produces the bulk of the region’s output wealth. With changing energy demands, the port is experiencing greater engagement with renewable energy projects.

Busselton Margaret River Airport is the region’s principal airport. Airside redevelopment work features a 2520m runway supporting Code 4E commercial aircraft (Boeing 737 and Airbus 320, 330) with the capacity for services to reach China. The airport’s key passenger carrier  is Jetstar which flies direct to Melbourne and Sydney.

BMRA aims to serve the region’s tourism potential as a powerful economic driver on the back of up to 250,000 passengers projected to pass through the BMRA in 2026. Those numbers will exceed the capacity of existing landside infrastructure and underpin the rapidly growing pressures to development a fit-for-purpose terminal.

The airport currently has 33 scheduled Fly in Fly out (FIFO) charter flights that service mine sites in the state’s Mid and North West, 3 direct services per week to Melbourne and 3 direct services per week to Sydney that began in April 2024. In 2022-23, a total of 135,700 passengers passed through BMRA, growing to about 155,000 passengers in 2023-24. Additionally, the airport serves ad hoc charters, tourism operators, emergency services (DFES, RFDS) and a growing general aviation community. With BMRA’s close proximity to Perth, the regional facility is also an alternate airport for airlines when Perth Airport may not be available. Potential for the airport includes expanded destinations in Australia and overseas, serving passengers and freight. The airport benefits from extensive and nearby greenfield development opportunities which could serve freight as well as transport logistics, aircraft engineering and maintenance, and other industries.

Bunbury Airport has WA’s highest number of light aircraft movements after Jandakot in Perth. Bunbury services private aviators and supports three flying schools as well as the region’s rescue helicopter and seasonal water bombers. The site is home to more than 50 hangars and 100 aircraft. Expansion would require the realignment of the South Western Highway.

Manjimup Airfield caters for various aviation services such as the RFDS, emergency fire-fighting, private aircraft and has a small number of FIFO flights.

The energy landscape is creating opportunities and unprecedented threats in equal measure. There are plans to phase out coal-fired energy generation by 2029, but renewable energy projects will not be ready until 2033. Co-ordinated by WA Treasury, the SWIS Demand Assessment estimates peak demand in the South West Interconnected System (SWIS) will more than triple by 2042. That means the South West could require up to 51GW of new energy generation and storage capacity to meet the needs of industry over the next 20 years. That will leave the South West with a serious energy demand deficit according to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).

The situation is being exacerbated as Australians ‘electrify’ their homes. The AEMO’s latest WA energy shortfall is forecast at 391MW by 2027-28 and around 2,880MW by 2033-34. The reality is that if coal-fired power stations closures are firm, then there will need to be significant (and immediate) energy investment.

Collie is at the centre of the SWIS transmission network and has attracted multi-billion-dollar battery investments. These will help stabilise the grid and better manage solar. Domestic penetration of rooftop solar in WA is the highest in the world and it is expected to blow out to 50% by 2030.

Renewable energy creates huge opportunities but there’s little narrative around the basic fact that coal-fired power makes up about a third of all energy generation in WA. At the same time, the South West economy is dominated by manufacturing: Albemarle, South32, Iluka Resources, Tronox and Simcoa all have huge energy demands. Resolving the energy challenge is the leading issue in the region.

The value of gas is its ability to provide instant electricity through turbines ie it negates the need for constant baseload power (burning coal 24/7) and can provide an immediate power surge in the event that wind and solar generation falls away. While it is a carbon fuel, gas is 50-60% cleaner than the most advanced coal-fired power stations and at this stage of technology, gas is the only option for energy shortfalls if scheduled coal-fired generation closures are not deferred.

While it is estimated that offshore wind infrastructure is unlikely to be producing energy before 2034-35, green hydrogen can be implemented in the short term. The WA Renewable Hydrogen Roadmap supports remote communities and fuelling vehicles, particularly in return-to-base operations such as mining and waste services where vehicles tend to operate set routes and can be powered by strategically located hydrogen production plants.

Water security will be one of the region’s greatest challenges. CSIRO found that the South West was ‘one of the most water challenged’ parts of the country. Rainfall has declined 15% since 1975 and continues to see a contraction along a NW-SE axis towards Cape Leeuwin.

Agriculture uses about 60% of all water in the region and 185GL Wellington Dam (the State’s second largest surface water supply) is increasing in salinity. The dam’s salinity level of more than 1,100 mg/L is well above the 500 mg/L total dissolved salts acceptable for potable water. It is also considered too high for sustaining irrigation. Industry leaders believe that water is under valued and so users can be wasteful, particularly in industry.

The prospects for water security are concerning without significant investment. It is preferred that interventions are pre-emptive rather than reactive.

The South West is relatively well served by high speed communications, domestically at up to 100Mbps and in Business Fibre Zones at 1Gbps in Bunbury, Busselton, Margaret River and Collie. It is expected that technology advances, particularly with 5G Internet will boost a lot of areas, although fibre offers the greatest stability The five key functional telecoms drivers include: superfast broadband, ultra-reliable low latency communication, massive machine-type communications, high reliability/availability and efficient energy usage. (PWC 2020)

NBN Co set a world record long range 5G transmission in 2021. That 1Gbps signal over 7km from a fixed wireless tower was surpassed by Samsung the following year – 1.7Gb over 10km. The South West features a concentration of towers that will benefit users as technology progresses.

Quality telecommunications are critical to the region’s proposals to create a Digital Innovation District/Advanced Manufacturing and Technology Hub.