Background

Michael Costa, then Minister for Transport Services, announced the merger of StateRail and the metropolitan functions of RIC on 30 April 2003. This move was the second stage of the NSW Government's reform agenda for the transport portfolio, targeted at improving the safety, cleanliness and reliability of the rail network.

Industry context

In early 2003, the NSW Government began a wide-ranging reform of the transport sector.

Highlights included:

• a ministerial inquiry into public passenger transport by Professor Tom Parry, head of the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal;
• the integration of the State Rail Authority of New South Wales and Rail Infrastructure Corporation to form the single passenger and metropolitan infrastructure agency - Rail Corporation New South Wales;
• an agreement to lease NSW interstate and Hunter Valley rail corridors, including the Port Botany line, to the Australian Rail Track Corporation to create, for the first time, a unified rail freight network from Western Australia to Queensland;
• the establishment of the Independent Transport Safety and Reliability Regulator; and
• the transformation of the Department of Transport into a smaller policy driven Ministry of Transport and the transferral of transport infrastructure planning functions to the new Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources.