Re: Road Cost Recovery.

[mauried@commslab.gov.au (Maurie Daly)]

Its interesting to note that one of the concurrent themes which is coming out 
of the submissions to the federal standing committee on rail reform,is that 
most external interested parties, ie non Govt rail operators think that 
horizontal integration, ie the separation of ownership of the tracks and the 
rolling stock will be a flop.
The general reasoning , which I tend to agree with , is that the owner of the 
track , usually a Govt track access authority , has no incentive whatsoever to 
spend money to improve the infrastructure, they simply want to collect the 
money.
The most favoured solution seems to be vertical integration , ie a wholly 
owned railway system,where the owner is NOT a Govt.
There would still be a need for a central authority , maybe even the ACCC to 
negotiate track access, where a dispute arose.
Another interesting point which has been made several times by many of the 
submissions is that there also needs to be a central authority responsible for 
setting safety standards, and investigating accidents, along the lines of how 
the aviation industry works, ie a railway equivalent of BASI.

Its pretty obvious that the members of the Comittee have now an excellent 
understanding of the magnitude and problems in the Australian rail industry.
I suspect that this wont be simply another report that gathers dust.

For those interested in reading the submissions try
www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/commttee/comrep.htm

Its heavy reading, but worth while.

cheers
MD