Pacific National chief executive Paul Scurrah has urged the federal government to invest money strengthening the “umbilical cord of the country” to keep supply chains open, after floods in South Australia washed away parts of the railway linking the eastern states with Perth.

“It’s being severed for longer than we thought and you’re seeing supply issues for supermarkets on either side of the problem, not just in Western Australia but Darwin and the Northern Territory,” Mr Scurrah told The Australian Financial Review.