Application for certification of the Queensland Rail Network (Application)

The Council received applications for declaration of the services provided by the Blackwater, Goonyella, Moura and Newlands coal railway facilities in Central Queensland owned by QR Limited (the Services). The Council also received an application for certification of the Queensland Rail Access Regime as an effective regime. Copies of the applications are available under the ‘application' tab to the left.

Applications for declaration of Queensland Rail's Queensland coal rail network

The four applications for declaration were lodged on 19 May 2010 by Pacific National Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Asciano Ltd, under s44F(1) of the TPA seeking declaration of the services provided by the Blackwater, Goonyella, Moura and Newlands coal railway facilities in Central Queensland owned by QR Limited. The Council intends to consider the declaration applications together.

In response to a request from the Council, the applicant provided by letter on 14 July 2010 additional information relating to the application. On 26 July 2010, the applicant provided a further letter clarifying some of the information in the earlier letter. Both letters, as well as a document describing the nature of the confidential information in the non-public version of the application, are available under 'Declaration application documents' below.

Application for certification of the Queensland Rail Access Regime

On 17 June 2010 the Premier of Queensland, the Hon Anna Bligh MP, applied under s44M of the TPA for the certification of the Queensland Rail Access Regime as an effective access regime. The Regime is described in the application as comprising: the Queensland Competition Authority Act 1997 (including the proposed amendments made by the Queensland Competition Authority and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2010), the Queensland Competition Authority Regulation 2007 (as amended by the Queensland Competition Authority Amendment Regulation 2010) (QCA Regulation), QR Network's current 2008 and proposed 2010 access undertakings as accepted by the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) and amended from time to time, the provisions of the Transport Infrastructure Act 1994 which deal with the organisational governance arrangements for QR Limited (including the proposed amendments made by the Queensland Competition Authority and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2010), and the rail safety regime established by the Transport Infrastructure Act 1994 which will transition to the regime established by the Transport (Rail Safety Act) 2010 when proclaimed later this year.

The Council's consideration of the certification and declaration applications

The Council now invites written submissions on the certification and declaration applications from interested parties. Parties making a submission should refer to the Council's Guide to Declaration, Guide to Certification, Guide to making a submission on declaration applications and Guide to making a submission on certification applications which are available under the ‘application' tab.

Parties making a submission should complete and attach a submission cover sheet which is available at the end of the Guide to making a submission. Submissions are due by 5pm on Monday 19 July 2010.

Rather than seeking multiple submissions, the Council intends to treat submissions in relation to each application as submissions in relation to all these applications and to run its consideration of the certification application in parallel with its consideration of the current declaration applications. For this reason the Council has made the closing date for submissions on the certification application the same as the closing date already specified for submissions on the declaration applications.

Submissions should be emailed in soft copy (both MS Word and PDF) to the Council at qldrailnetwork@ncc.gov.au with a hard copy sent to:

Queensland Rail Network Submissions
National Competition Council
GPO Box 250
Melbourne VIC 3001

If you intend to make a submission, or would like to be kept informed of developments with the applications, please download and complete the Registration of Interest form below and email it to qldrailnetwork@ncc.gov.au or fax it to (03) 9285 7477. If you have previously registered your interest in relation to the declaration applications, there is no need to re-register your interest for the certification application.