Re: Federal budget

[mauried@tpg.com.au (Maurie Daly)]

In article <391c67a1.0@galaxy.globec.com.au> "Graham Watkins" <gwatkins@globec.com.au> writes:
>From: "Graham Watkins" <gwatkins@globec.com.au>
>Subject: Re: Federal budget
>Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 05:54:34 +1000

>I agree with Dave (now that's a worry!)

>The states don't hand over control of their road networks to Canberra to get
>funds and they don't have to for their railways either.

>It is a convenient excuse for the pro road federal government to ignore rail
>developments

>Graham Watkins.



A couple of points.
Firstly , the Federal Transport Minister has responded in full to the 3 
rail inquiries reports.
His response was handed down on the house of reps on April 13th.
A good summary is contained in this months edition of Track & Signal.

Now lets take the case of Federal funding of Roads.
The Feds do fund a large portion of the major highways and what are called 
Roads of National Significance via a State / federal Govt agreement called the 
National Roads agreement.
All States are signatories to this agreement.
I order to get this funding the States had to agree to heap or Federal Govt 
requirements in relation to heavy trucks , including National Standards for 
truck registration ,speed limits,gross vehicle mass,and licensing conditions.
These conditions basically allow a truck registered in any State to travel 
freely anywhere in the country without requiring registration of licensing in 
any of the other States.

In the case of Rail there are no Federal / State agreements in place 
whatsoever,despite at least 3 attempts by the Federal Govt to negotiate them.
The same conditions were required, ie National Standards for railways in 
Australia.
Of course , we all know that three States, WA,NSW and Qld woudnt have any 
thing to do with any National agreements which restricted their rights to play 
trains .
What do we now end up with.
Five differant State based rail Safety Acts.
Differant standards and accreditation requirements in every state.
Every item of rollingstock has to be separately certified in every state that 
it runs in.
Accreditation fees have to be paid in every State for every item of 
rollingstock.(try and figure out how much this costs NRC for example.)
No common standards in anything.
Multiple Track Access regimes of which none have been certified as effictive 
by the NCC.


Would you be funding this disaster if you were the Federal Transport Minister.
I sure wouldnt.

MD