Mr PERRETT (Gympie—LNP) (11.15 am):
I rise to speak briefly on the Queensland Competition Authority Amendment Bill 2018. The three policy objectives in this bill are: to amend the criteria for Queensland’s third-party access regime to reflect changes being made to the national access regime; to ensure our regime continues to be easily understood and addresses the economic problem of natural monopoly in markets for infrastructure services; and to provide for additional accountability and transparency to assist in streamlining the process in relation to access undertakings.
The first objective refers to the third-party access regime, which is administered by the
Queensland Competition Authority. It is about providing a way to seek access to services provided by
significant infrastructure facilities which are owned or controlled by others and cannot be economically
duplicated. Services include the use of infrastructure such as rail tracks, port terminals and channels.
Currently it involves three services: the rail transport services provided by Aurizon Network’s Central
Queensland coal network; the coal-handling services at Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal; and the rail
transport services provided by Queensland Rail’s intrastate passenger and freight network.
The bill’s objectives and the services impacted highlight the hypocrisy of the public position of
the Labor government regarding privatisation. This is yet another case of how we should judge this
government and the Labor Party on what it does and not on what it says. It was the Beattie government
which privatised the Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal 17 years ago, in 2001, and it was the Bligh
government which privatised QR National seven years ago, in 2011. Privatisation is obviously not new
to Labor governments. These two actions are the reason a private company holds monopoly
infrastructure in Queensland and such access declarations are necessary.
While only the three services I mentioned are currently declared under the current arrangements,
other services may be declared through the declaration process. Decisions about the application of
access regulations are made on the basis of whether the service satisfies certain access criteria. It
needs to satisfy whether access or increased access to the service would promote a material increase
in competition in at least one market other than the market for the service, whether it can be provided
safely, whether it would not be contrary to the public interest, whether it would be uneconomical to
duplicate the infrastructure for the service and whether the infrastructure for the service is significant
having regard to its size and importance to Queensland’s economy.
The bill’s primary goal is to amend these access criteria and reflect national changes. Proposals
include amending the competition criteria by reframing them to consider whether declaration, rather
than access or increased access, would promote competition. It seeks to amend criteria that confirm
the natural monopoly test for access declaration criteria which is that ‘it would be uneconomical to
develop another infrastructure service if existing infrastructure could provide society’s reasonably
foreseeable demand at a lower total cost than two or more facilities’.
The bill proposes to omit criteria which require that access or increased access can be provided
safely as this is a matter that can be considered under the public interest test. Finally, it proposes to
reframe the public interest criteria in the affirmative by requiring that access must promote the public
interest rather than not be contrary to it.
When the Productivity Commission reviewed the national regime, it found that the purpose of the
public interest test should be ‘to require that the community as a whole is likely to be better off as a
result of the declaration’. Submissions on this bill raised concerns about potentially creating a period of
uncertainty regarding the new access criteria in upcoming reviews of declarations which are due to
expire in 2020. The QRC stated—
… changing those criteria and dropping them into a review process recreates quite a protracted period of uncertainty.
Similarly, the Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal User Group said that the new criteria are ‘new and
largely untested’ and ‘creates a significant risk in requiring the QCA to carry out the proposed review
process with little to no guidance, and has already caused investment uncertainty’. As the Queensland
Resources Council pointed out, its industry relies on essential multi-user infrastructure services such
as rail, ports and water which are monopoly businesses.
Effective regulation of this monopoly power is necessary to enable the resource sector to realise
its potential for growth and contribution to the state’s economy. The rail network services are a
monopoly. There is no economic alternative to transport coal from a mine to an export port or a domestic
point of sale such as a power station. The amount of rail access that a mine has dictates port access.
In addition, the Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal is Queensland’s largest multi-user coal export terminal, is
the only common user terminal for mines in the Goonyella region and is natural monopoly infrastructure.
While I do not oppose the bill, it is important that we are highly vigilant in how we administer and
manage competition policy because it has a significant impact on the outcomes for some of our most
productive industry sectors as well as the outcomes for businesses of all sizes and activities, for the
workforce, for consumers and for the Queensland economy.