Application for certification of the Queensland Rail Network (Draft recommendation)

On 14 September 2010 the Council released its draft recommendation on the application for certification of the Queensland Rail Access Regime. The Council's proposed recommendation to the Commonwealth Minister, who is the Treasurer, the Hon Wayne Swan MP, is that the Regime be certified as effective for a period of 10 years.

The Council has also released its draft recommendation on the applications for declaration of the services provided by facilities comprising the Central Queensland Coal Rail Network (the Services). The Council's proposed recommendation to the designated Minister, who is the Premier of Queensland, The Hon Anna Bligh MP, is that the Services not be declared.

Copies of the draft recommendations and the media statement are available for download below.

The Council invites written submissions from interested parties on the draft recommendation. As noted in the Council's Guide to Making a Submission, submissions on a draft recommendation should focus on the preliminary conclusions reached by the Council and the reasons for these and seek to provide additional information and analysis to that already available to the Council. Repetition of points that have been made earlier is unlikely to be of assistance. The closing time and date for submissions is 5.00pm on 14 October 2010.

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

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

On 13 October 2010 the applicant notified the Council of the withdrawal of the application for declaration (see below). Consequently, the Council will not make a final recommendation to the designated Minister in respect of declaration of the Services.

As previously advised, the Council was undertaking its consideration of the declaration and certification applications through a common process. Rather than asking parties to make separate submissions in response to the certification and declaration draft recommendations, the Council intended to consider submissions as being made in relation to both draft recommendations. As the declaration application has since been withdrawn, all submissions received before the deadline, to the extent that they relate to the application for certification of the Queensland Rail Access Regime, will be taken into account by the Council in making its final recommendation in that matter.

Once the Council has considered these submissions and undertaken further analysis it will provide its final recommendation to the Commonwealth Treasurer.