Following 194 submissions, 30 public hearings and an in-depth investigation of Australia's most important infrastructure, the committee found that a large number of the country's ports suffer from deficiencies in their transport and logistics infrastructure.
The report – The Great Freight Task: Is Australia's Transport Network Up to the Challenge? – found the deficiencies included missing supply links, a lack of rail capacity, bypasses and a lack of ring-roads or road and rail loops needed to reduce traffic congestion in port approaches.
The report calls for an immediate response and "bold" measures to be put in place to better position the transport sector to deal with the growth of the freight task.
Federal member for Tangney Dennis Jensen attributes the issues surrounding Australia's overburdened transport network to China's rapid growth.
"I think fundamentally what it came down to was that the very rapid growth of China in the early part of the century was not foreseen and therefore there hadn't been the infrastructure and everything else put in place to actually deal with the capacity that we're now having to deal with," he said.
However, Jensen does not believe the transport network is at breaking point just yet.
"To say there's a crisis is really sort of overstating it. There are capacity constraints, there's no doubt about that," he said.
"When you have a look at the Dalrymple Bays and the Newcastles with ships sitting there for a significant amount of time, obviously it affects the ship companies' productivity and also the productivity of the company trying to source coal or whatever material they are wanting to get."
The committee put forward 25 recommendations it believes will help the network handle the growth.
It encouraged the incorporation of emerging technologies, such as double-stacking of containers, modern signalling systems for railways and the development of intermodal hubs in capital cities.
The depth of water available in the channels of some ports, notably Melbourne, is also cause for concern, the report found.
The global trend is for larger and larger cargo vessels, and already many of the vessels servicing Australian ports cannot navigate the channels when fully loaded.
The committee recommended the Australian Government assist in resolving Melbourne's difficulties over the proposed deepening of the access channel to the port.
Other recommendations propose the allocation of funding to overcoming the main problems hampering the transport network's access to ports.
Another major concern is the deteriorating condition of rural rail lines used to transport the grain harvest.
According to the committee, the consequence of this is additional traffic pressure on regional roads that were not designed for heavy freight vehicles.
However, the committee received evidence from Canada on a methodology that could revitalise those lines.
The former head of Queensland Rail, Vince O'Rourke, said in the report Australia was doing too much patching and suggested the country should "build some really good railways".
"On a modern railway from Melbourne to Brisbane, freight trains could make their journey in 15 hours. It would be overnight. It is the just-in-time manufacturing inventory, logistics and integration with the ports that this nation needs," he said.
The report also highlighted the longstanding problem of disagreement and neglect affecting road and rail connections across state and shire borders.
The committee recommended that the Australian Government provide funding for the establishment of commissions, involving each jurisdiction, to deal with those problems.
It said the adoption of its recommendations was essential to ensuring Australia's transport network is up to the challenge of the next 20 years.
According to Jensen, Australia needs to commit about $70 million to each port to alleviate the problems otherwise the country may not be able to match market demand for exports.
"I think that the problem there potentially is that if things got a whole lot worse Australia might be seen as not being a particularly reliable supplier and therefore they [other countries] may look elsewhere," he said.
Jensen also suggested the Federal Government and state governments, as well as industry, commit to public-private partnerships to help resolve the network issues.
