WA could face fuel and food disruption, warns transport expert

An Omicron outbreak in Western Australia will likely heap pressure on an already stressed supply chain, the head of the state’s transport association has warned, threatening food and fuel distribution

Western Roads Federation chief executive Cam Dumesny.

An Omicron outbreak in Western Australia will threaten already stressed food and fuel supply chains, the head of the state’s transport association says.

Western Roads Federation chief executive Cam Dumesny said “all modes” of transport were struggling with workforce short­ages and WA was “already starting to see the disruption.”

“WA is coming into this with supply chains already under stress,” Mr Dumesny said.

“We’re critically short on truck drivers; we’re over 1000 road train drivers short; we’ve got shortages of freight train drivers; ongoing global shipping disruptions coming into the state. And we’ve got reduced air travel and, therefore, reduced airfreight as well.”

Without short-term action to alleviate the pressures of rising case numbers on the system, Mr Dumesny said remote communities in the state would be affected by the sector’s inability to transport crucial materials.

“If you get an outbreak in a terminal, or in the transport distribution arm of fuel truck drivers, it takes you 12 weeks to train up one of those – you can’t just put someone else in the truck,” he said.

“We send fuel up to remote communities in order to … (get) their power generation going (and) the water treatment plants going.

“You need fuel for more than just keeping the trucks going.”

He pointed to a local manufacturing business as an example of how freight issues were already impacting WA. Initially importing packing bags from China for $40 within a 40-day delivery timeframe, supply chain issues had now caused delivery times to balloon out to 160 days.

WA Premier Mark McGowan has set February 5 as the date in which the state will reopen to the rest of Australia, potentially putting the state’s critical services under duress as they grapple with the proliferation of infections.

Mr Dumesny said the state needed to open up in February because it would help alleviate existing staffing problems.

He said one transport company currently had 70 staff members stuck on the east coast.

“At the end of the day, we’re going to have to cross the river. We’re going to swim across this thing to get to the other side. It’s not going to go away,” he said.

“At some point in time, let’s just get on and do it … but taking every preparation we can – it’s never going to be perfect.”

Mr Dumesny said the commonwealth and the WA government needed to start putting “real solutions” on the table.

This included providing free rapid antigen tests to truck drivers, improving training pathways for drivers, and allowing the industry to train refugee and migrant workers who were currently unable to work.