project would structurally reduce freight costs, improve the flow of goods, enable passenger services and facilitate the development of renewable energy projects along the route to inject low-cost electricity into the South West Interconnected System to begin with and, upon completion, into the North West (Pilbara) Interconnected System and independent networks. Efficiency and cost of living benefits aside, there is an associated carbon reduction benefit that can capture offset revenue and reduce access costs to markets like the European Union which taxes the carbon content of imports. All of this is essential to establishing larger settlements in WA’s North. Infrastructure Australia 5 , Infrastructure WA 6 , the WA Department of Treasury 7 and Development WA 8 have well-established prioritisation and business case evaluation processes suited to infrastructure projects of this scale. The Commonwealth’s Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility was established to with nation building projects like this in mind. Western Australia has reached sufficient economic scale to realise a project of this magnitude. Renewable energy technologies now offer the opportunity to structurally reduce energy costs, while global policy is generating carbon offset revenues to offset development costs and new competitive advantages through carbon import duties avoided. With the potential to establish renewable energy projects along the alignment, the economic and revenue direct and indirect returns to government revenue and private investors should be sufficient to justify the initial capital investment.
www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au www.infrastructure.wa.gov.au
5 6 7 8
www.wa.gov.au/organisation/department-of-treasury
www.developmentwa.com.au
10 | WA Investment Prospectus 10 | WA Investment Prospectus
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