The economy

Developing a strong economy that delivers more jobs, more opportunities and greater wealth to Western Australia by creating the conditions required for investment and growth.

Policy and planning
Establishing professional partnerships
We established ourselves at the forefront of research and development of land use planning issues with the formation of two new professional partnerships during the year.

The Planning and Transport Research Centre was established to provide funding for much-needed research to assist the Department and the wider portfolio. The centre, which is funded by the Department and our portfolio partner Main Roads Western Australia, will undertake research into projects including marine safety, rail safety and the New MetroRail Project.

The Centre for Urban Design is a joint initiative with the University of Western Australia and Curtin University of Technology to bridge urban design practice and research, and harness the capacities of practitioners to achieve excellence in urban design. The centre is expected to be operating by the end of 2004 and will undertake research and studies for state and local governments and provide advice to community groups and the private sector.

Read More...
Read more about the Research Centre and Main Roads Western Australia under Enhancing performance through partnerships

Working with the pastoral industry  
The second 'Gascoyne Muster' in October 2003 allowed direct input from the pastoral industry into the decision-making process guiding their future, with emphasis on sustainability and alternative models of land tenure.

Negotiations commenced with pastoral lessees regarding the excision of land from their leases - about two per cent of the state's pastoral land in total - when these leases expire in 2015.

Pastoral lease rents for 480 of the state’s 528 pastoral leases were increased following a review by the Valuer General's Office. The increase was based on a fair investment return to the state for the use of the land for pastoral purposes. Total revenue from pastoral lease rent collection will increase by $600,000 to $1.6 million for the 2004-05 financial year.

Tourism Taskforce 
The Department worked with the Ministerial Tourism Taskforce during 2003-04 to address concerns regarding the loss of affordable and equitable access to some of the state's traditional tourist areas, and the use of some tourist sites for residential purposes. The taskforce identified a need to:

• Increase focus on land use planning for tourist development;
• Facilitate development of high value tourist sites; and
• Ensure the use of tourist land for tourist purposes.

The Department assisted the taskforce in finalising its recommendations during 2004. These will be developed into formal planning policy during 2004-05 to guide government agencies and local government on appropriate planning for tourist developments.

Land assembly  
The Department has played a key role in making Crown land available, or arranging appropriate land tenure, to facilitate development in regional Western Australia. Land assembly entails drawing together a parcel of land that addresses all land tenure issues, including mining tenure, environmental and heritage issues, native title, covenants and easements. During the year we completed the land assembly process at Albany, Hopetoun, Bremer Bay, Newdegate, Ravensthorpe, Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Kununurra and on the Burrup Peninsula.

Rail freight policy  
We are developing strategic policy statements that will guide the Government in facilitating increased rail freight transport in Western Australia to address community concerns about growing road freight volumes and industry requirements for efficient freight movement.

During 2003-04, the Department completed background work in preparation for the development of the policy, including studies of new rail technologies, international practices for rail infrastructure funding and costs of external impacts.

Freight planning priority  
Better movement of freight around the metropolitan area is a priority for the Planning and Infrastructure portfolio, and the Freight Network Strategy addressed the significant imbalance between road and rail freight. Key achievements in implementing the strategy over the past year included:

• Roe Highway Stage Six - linking Nicholson Road with South Street - was opened to traffic in April 2004.
• The number of containers carried by rail between Fremantle Inner Harbour and Kewdale has almost doubled.
• Planning is under way for the Kewdale Intermodal Freight Terminal.
• A study was made of the landside movement of containers that pass through Fremantle Port, revealing many opportunities for easing the impact of heavy vehicles working at the port. Related work is now continuing on areas such as warehouse/container park operating hours, container truck utilisation, management of empty containers, the potential for increased rail share, truck routes servicing the port, electronic commerce and land use planning.
• Planning of additional port facilities at Kwinana - to handle trade beyond the capacity of the Fremantle Inner Harbour - has commenced.
• An examination of the need to upgrade major roads in the south-west metropolitan corridor, as well as measures to protect local communities from the impacts of freight and general traffic.

Deleting the Fremantle Eastern Bypass  
In November 2003, State Parliament endorsed a Western Australian Planning Commission recommendation to delete the Fremantle Eastern Bypass from the Metropolitan Region Scheme. The Commission’s recommendation followed lengthy consultation with stakeholders and was made on the basis that:

• Building more roads was not an adequate response to managing growth in transport change;
• Investment should be directed towards future transport needs servicing the Fremantle Outer Harbour, the Fremantle Rockingham Industrial Area, Kwinana and Naval Base;
• The road network west of the Kwinana Freeway has adequate capacity for the next 25 years; and
• Even if the bypass was built, Leach Highway and other major roads in the region would remain busy roads and issues such as road safety, levels of service and noise would still need to be dealt with.

The decision to delete the bypass was approved by Parliament in April 2004.

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