<p>A lack of lobbying muscle and continued gaps in federal and state government transport infrastructure planning mechanisms may see critical assets such as regional ports miss out on vital AusLink spending allocations, the Regional Ports in Focus conference heard.</p> <p>Political lobbying and partial group lobbying was likely to win the day – and the dollars – Meyrick and Associates director Louise Meyrick said.</p> <p>“As relatively small players in the freight transport arena – small players in terms of their representational power – some regional ports may miss out on development of adequate road and rail networks,” she said.</p> <p>“Some parts of the AusLink investment vehicle are allocated through a process of assessing competing applications by local governments, or coalitions between local governments, industry bodies, and others who have a specific interest in a piece of local infrastructure.</p> <p>“Hopefully the reasonably developed national guidelines for transport system management will form the basis upon which those applications will be assessed from here on in.”</p> <p>Further, the numbers of local governments becoming “very, very excited about freight” are on the rise. </p> <p>“They’re particularly excited about forming coalitions with ports to set up, hopefully, the `world’s best intermodal terminal’,” Ms Meyrick said.</p> <p>“This trend is great, we might say – it reflects the growing awareness of freight.</p> <p>“But it is also a very dangerous game, and one that is fulfilling – particularly in New South Wales – a State Government planning gap.</p> <p>“As long as there is a gap in federal and state government planning about our transport system as a whole, political lobbying and partial group lobbying is likely to win the day, and that, I believe, will result in greatly wasted investment.”</p> <br />
