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THIRD‐PARTY ACCESS TO INFRASTRUCTURE: THE CASE OF THE MT NEWMAN RAIL LINE IN THE PILBARA
Author(s) -
KOSHY PAUL,
KENYON PETER
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
economic papers: a journal of applied economics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.245
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1759-3441
pISSN - 0812-0439
DOI - 10.1111/j.1759-3441.2007.tb01018.x
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , competition (biology) , order (exchange) , business , line (geometry) , public administration , political science , public relations , management , finance , economics , geography , ecology , geometry , mathematics , archaeology , biology
Australia is continuing to develop a legal and administrative framework for facilitating third party access to important infrastructure. This paper examines the workings of the organisation charged with assessing requests for access—the National Competition Council—in the context of the Council's Final Recommendation on an application by the Fortescue Metals Group for access to the Mt Newman Rail Line, owned and operated by BHP Billiton Iron Ore. The discussion draws on submissions to the Council and the recent literature on rail access in order to critique this decision. It concludes by observing that further research is needed to develop a methodology for a more formal approach to determining certain key questions.