National rail safety reforms delayed once again

The rail industry is severely frustrated by the tardy rail safety reform agenda announced by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) at its second meeting on April 30th, said the Australasian Railway Association (ARA).

By Jennifer Perry

While COAG agreed to the implementation of national rail safety legislation and a nationally consistent rail safety regulatory framework back in April 2007, the Rail Safety reform stream had not been met at the time of the COAG Reform Council’s (CRC) first report to COAG in 2008.
The CRC’s second report, given on April 30th found that once again, all rail safety reform milestones were either late or stalled, with the exception of the passage of the legislation, though this was only because the legislation had a revised deadline of December 2009 and was therefore “technically” not late.
Key reform milestones that were expected to be completed between the 2008 and 2009 COAG meetings included the passage of the model Rail Safety Bill by jurisdictions; establishment of national rail operator accreditation; development of a framework to support nationally consistent training for rail safety regulators; the standardisation of rail safety data collections, and the development of a national train driver licensing framework.
“Overall, the ability to bring about many of the national reforms in this area hinges on the passage of legislation in all States and Territories, which has not occurred,” the CRC report stated, “as a result, other reforms are also stalled.”
“The original target for the agreed National Model Safety Bill was July 1st 2007, how long do we have to wait?” Bryan Nye, chief executive for the ARA told Rail Express.
“The COAG announcement that those jurisdictions yet to enact the model legislation must do so by the end of 2009 allows jurisdictions to continue to drag the chain,” he said.
“Apart from Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales (NSW), jurisdictions failed to meet the deadline by a mile. Even then, neither Victoria, South Australia or NSW have fully aligned their legislation with the National Model Safety Bill and Regulations.
“Our view is that we get on and implement national rail safety regulations and stop this mess – COAG is still marking time with rail reform,” Nye said.
While the CRC noted that no decision had been made on a National Rail Safety Regulator and Investigator, its report stated that a decision on the matter is, “likely to be made in mid 2009,” with implementation taking approximately two years.
The ARA welcomes this as good news, acknowledging COAG’s “great support” on this matter with the commissioning of a Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) by the National Transport Commission (NTC) in 2008.
“Industry strongly supports the NTC in quickly finalising the RIS and moving to implement this very valuable nation-building reform to give effect to a National Rail Safety Regulator,” Nye said.
“A National Rail Safety Regulator will considerably enhance the regulation of rail across the nation by bringing improved consistency, effectiveness and efficiency of regulatory practice which will reduce the regulatory burden on rail.
“I call on COAG to establish a transition process to set up the...National Regulator as soon as possible.”
Nye said that this must be decided at the next COAG meeting for, “the good of the nation.”
The CRC also recommended that COAG ask the Australian Transport Commission (ATC) to continue to develop proposals for national train driver licensing.
While this particular reform stream is a COAG commitment and it is COAG’s prerogative to determine whether it “remains a goal,” an NTC draft discussion paper on the development of a national train driver licensing framework concluded that there is no strong rationale for supporting this development, with industry stakeholders viewing a licensing scheme as unnecessary, the CRC’s report stated.

The 2009 COAG reform Council Report is available on the COAG website at http://www.coag.gov.au