Re: QR going national?

["John McCandless" <johnmc@topend.com.au>]

Ian Harvey <ian_harvey@do.not.spam.me> wrote in message
37F6B3E7.3C07D78B@do.not.spam.me">news:37F6B3E7.3C07D78B@do.not.spam.me...
> A lot of the following is IMHO, and I'm a bit tipsy at the moment too,
> but anyway...
>
 > ...
> > > In short, the Qld Govt use high coal freight rates to collect
royalties
> > > from the mines.
> >
> > Which, of course, goes back into the community and funds infrastructure
> > (including the railway.) This is the equivalent of profit-taking and
> > re-investment in the corporate world. Why is this wrong?
>
> In most situations in the corporate world competition acts as a limiting
> factor.  This is why unregulated monopolies are a bad thing.
>
> I have no complaint at all about the Qld Govt collecting royalties -
> that's totally justified and fair.  The problem comes from them
> collecting them via QR via rail freight rates (and even then, that's
> fine
> as long as it's acknowledged that that's the case):

I recall a few years ago [during one of QR's "Big Picture" presentations to
it's employees - we've had a few of them :-)] that the government was
shortly going to start putting it's hand out for the royalties, which would
go into consolidated revenue, instead of QR getting it.  I don't know (coal
not being my area) whether the government is doing that yet, but the bottom
line is that sooner or later, QR will no longer get to keep any coal
royalties (again, open to correction).


--
John McCandless
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn...
Cloncurry Qld Au