Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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boronia
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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NSW rail corporation ditches rent-free offices for $1 million-a-year CBD tower

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nsw ... 5aw5p.html
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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‘It’s unjust’: Controversial rail corporation charges tenants thousands extra

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/it- ... tid=Zxz2cZ
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https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the ... 5e2ub.html
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The $600m warning that tipped the treasurer’s hand

The Minns government will move quickly to revamp a state corporation that owns billions of dollars worth of the state’s rail assets after a warning it would be forced to inject more than $600 million to prop up the controversial entity.

Following advice from NSW Treasury, the government is fast-tracking a promised overhaul of the scandal-ridden Transport Asset Holding Entity (TAHE) to remove its for-profit status and create a model similar to that of Sydney Trains and Venues NSW.
Treasury estimates the changes will cost the budget $384 million over the next four years.

However, Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said that altering TAHE from a state-owned corporation into a non-commercial one would eliminate the need to shift billions of dollars between different government bodies.

“We’re telling TAHE to start spending from its savings account rather than putting it all on the state’s credit card,” he said.

The government estimates this will reduce the state’s net debt by $4 billion over the next four years.

“We have had to do this [TAHE transition] a little faster than we perhaps thought we needed to because we were advised an additional $615 million was required,” Mookhey said.

TAHE owns significant assets in NSW, including railway tracks, trains, stations, and extensive land holdings including retail spaces. The body has been the subject of intense scrutiny for more than two years since a Herald investigation revealed it had been set up by the previous government to shift billions of dollars of expenses off the NSW budget and into the new rail entity to artificially inflate the state’s coffers.

The plan to convert TAHE’s status comes a week before the treasurer delivers his first budget amid sluggish economic conditions.

Mookhey has previously warned that the state’s finances face “severe challenges” due to high inflation and rising interest rates. The latest budget update in March revealed a deficit of $7.1 billion for this financial year.

The lower borrowings due to the TAHE overhaul will help Labor deliver on its promise to keep the state’s gross debt under a forecast peak of $187 billion by mid-2026.

The changes to the controversial rail corporation will be rolled out in three phases, and will require the support of the crossbench to pass legislation to complete the overhaul by June next year. The transition will be overseen by a working group chaired by Carolyn Walsh, who is also leading a review into Sydney’s rail network, and TAHE will eventually be rebadged.

The Coalition’s treasury spokesman Damien Tudehope said there was a danger that the treasurer’s obsession with TAHE’s accounting treatment and structure would derail its focus on managing transport assets for the entire community.

“The treasurer is just continuing his political obsession with TAHE,” he said.

While TAHE will shed its for-profit status, the government said the new structure would sharpen the state corporation’s “focus on maximising the value of its transport assets”, especially surplus land near railway stations that could be used to solve NSW’s housing crisis.
About 24 hectares around Central Station is the jewel in TAHE’s crown, and has been identified for an $11 billion redevelopment that would involve constructing towers up to 34 storeys and plazas on a massive deck built over rail lines.

A confidential strategy by TAHE more than a year ago revealed it had plans to sell land at Wolli Creek, Hurstville and Redfern, while it was eyeing sites at Parramatta, Granville, Newtown, Dundas and Glendale for development in the longer term.

Greens MP Abigail Boyd, who sat on a parliamentary inquiry into the rail corporation, said the TAHE fiasco clearly needed to be fixed, and she tentatively welcomed Labor taking some early steps to unwind it.

“One of the key learnings from the TAHE debacle was that governments need to be far more upfront and transparent about the accounting and budget treatment of these opaque entities,” she said.

“We’d expect to see full details of this latest plan made before we will be giving it our blessing. I’m concerned about this continued focus about trying to make money out of public transport.”

The previous government was forced to write down the value of TAHE by $20 billion and inject billions of dollars into the rail corporation.

Mookhey said he was determined to end the saga surrounding TAHE, accusing the previous government of tarnishing the state’s reputation for budget honesty by using the rail corporation to hide the true cost of operating the railways from the state’s accounts.

He repeatedly lambasted TAHE when Labor was in opposition, describing it as a “budget trick” and “accounting sham”, and had promised a major shake-up of the corporation if the party won power.

TAHE chief executive Benedicte Colin handed in her resignation in July after she missed out on becoming the state’s new transport chief to former Labor staffer Josh Murray.

Colin, who has said her resignation was not related to Murray’s appointment, has been on annual leave for about a month and her last day in the role at TAHE could be as late as January due to her notice requirements.
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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jpp42 wrote:‘It’s unjust’: Controversial rail corporation charges tenants thousands extra
Hard to feel sorry for a guy who's clipping the ticket and just sub-leasing the site.

I think most people would have an expectation that our public entities should be charging commercial rent.
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