The "chimera" of national planning

By Paul Bugler*

I was recently discussing IA’s efforts to construct a national freight network plan with colleagues.

I have to declare that I’ve been decidedly underwhelmed with IA’s efforts to date with regard to positioning rail freight to be a competitive and viable contributor to the Australian economy in the 21st century.

It may be over-simplistic of me, but my impression is that IA’s solution to the many problems facing rail freight in this country are (a) a national planning body and (b) a heavy reliance on ‘public private partnerships’ (PPPs).

Call me old fashioned, but it seems to me that PPPs have a particularly poor success rate and IA’s insistence that somehow the private sector will fund the future of rail freight infrastructure bodes badly for rail.

Having denigrated PPPs, I thought it worth taking a closer look at the concept of a national freight network plan and the associated national planning body.

I tend to support the concept of unified planning. There are few things sillier in our country than the continued discontinuities that the rail industry faces through past fragmented, state-based planning.

That we have different gauges in each state is forgivable given that at the time railways were first being built we were different colonies and the railway systems were built to move agricultural products to the ports – interstate linkages were very much an afterthought.

But there can be no such excuse for the continued multiplicity of legislation and regulation that continues to promote a state-based view of transport links.

Nor is it supportable to have different technical standards, structure gauges etc. The interstate rail links may have initially been an afterthought, but they are now significant given the size of the interstate freight rail task.

The Council Of Australian Governments (COAG) has agreed to set up a national safety regulator, and that is to be applauded.

IA is now moving towards a national planning approach for freight transport (both road and rail), and that ought to be a good thing.

Unfortunately, setting up an effective national planning body for road and rail freight transport will be far more challenging.

Putting aside the road side of the issue, the national planning of the interstate network means a national body intruding on fundamental state jurisdiction. Some elements may be less challenging than others.

For example, technical standards ought to be something that are less politically threatening than other areas, but even in that arena Australian railways have been struggling for many years to come to an agreement.

But the real challenges lie in areas such land management and funding.
It is heartening that ARTC has been slowly but surely acquiring the management of most of the existing interstate rail corridor, the stand-out exception being Kalgoorlie to Perth.

However, it is a much harder task to address the requirements of the future that will involve difficult decisions on the location of terminals adjacent to urban areas and rail corridors likely to impact our sprawling cities.

And any comprehensive plan needs to cover the connections to adjacent transport modes and corridors – the impact is far wider than the bare bones of the interstate network.

These decisions will affect local communities and local politicians (both state and local government) and it is hard to see state governments ceding any authority to a central planning body over such matters.

And if the central planning body has no real power to implement its plans, then the plans are doomed to compromise and distortion. 

The idea of a national plan is terrific, but as always, my cup is half empty.

*Paul Bugler has over 20 years experience in the transport industry and heads up Lacertus Verum, a railway management advisory service that has particular specialisation in dealing with infrastructure access.