ACCC head, Rod Sims, has lashed Australia’s rentier ‘Game of Mates’ economy, using the Port of Newcastle – the world’s biggest coal port – as a case study of a “monopolist without constraint”:
The Port of Newcastle is at the centre of recent developments in the tussle between Australia’s regulatory framework and the owners of essential monopoly infrastructure. The latter are clearly winning.
As you probably know, on 24 September the National Competition Council (NCC) made public its recommendation to revoke the declaration of the shipping channel service at the Port of Newcastle. On the same day, the Treasurer confirmed the statutory waiting period had expired and that, therefore, the declaration was revoked.
