Report
A review of the economic and social benefits of Indigenous land and sea management
Synergies was engaged by Pew Charitable Trusts (Pew) to prepare a report on the social and economic contributions of Indigenous ranger programs in Australia. Pew is a not-for-profit environmental organisation that funds and publishes policy research into contemporary environmental and social issues. For almost a decade the Commonwealth Government has funded Indigenous ranger groups through a program called “Working on Country”. There are now about 700 rangers operating across the country. The rangers perform land ...
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Report
Potential for Increase in Navigation Services Charges at Port of Newcastle
Synergies Economic Consulting was engaged by Glencore to construct some indicative Maximum Allowable Revenue (MAR) scenarios for the Port of Newcastle’s channel assets. The purpose of the analysis was to provide an indication of the likely annual revenue that a regulator would allow under a standard building blocks methodology. As the value of the channel assets is a key driver of the revenue allowance, Glencore has commissioned a high level Depreciated Optimised Replacement Cost ...
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Report
The Rate of Return to Apply to ARTC’s Hunter Valley Coal Network
Synergies provided an opinion on the appropriate Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) to apply to its Hunter Valley Coal Network (the HVCN) for the purpose of its forthcoming access undertaking review
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An Alternative model for Victorian water businesses
In 2014, the Victorian government reviewed and revised the WIRO, removing the prescriptive approach to water pricing. This allows the ESC significant discretion to decide on the manner, approach and methodology (the pricing approach) used to deliver efficient pricing and service outcomes for Victorian water and sewerage customers. This paper presents an alternative, lighter handed approach to regulating Victoria’s 19 water
businesses.
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New Acland Coal Mine Stage 3
Synergies was engaged by the Department of Natural Resources and Mines (DNRM) to undertake a rapid Social Benefit-Cost Analysis (SBCA) of a proposal by New Hope Group to develop a new coal mine in the Darling Downs region of southeast Queensland. A ‘rapid’ SBCA aims to identify (and value in dollar terms where possible) just the major impacts as opposed to a more detailed, comprehensive assessment of all impacts.
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Building Blocks Model River Murray Operations
Synergies was engaged by the Murray-Darling Basin Officials Committee (BOC) to develop a building blocks model for River Murray Operations (RMO) based on an assessment of efficient costs, and consistent with the Water Charge (Infrastructure) Rules. Our review was well received by BOC and the Murray Darling Basin Ministerial Council. We made various recommendations relating to improvements to operations, use of future
benchmarking and improvements to data capture and reporting to aid transparency. These ...
Report
Cost-benefit analysis of the implementation of landfill disposal bans in Queensland
The Department of Environment and Heritage Protection (DEHP) engaged Synergies Economic Consulting (Synergies) and MRA Consulting Group (MRA) to assess the feasibility of introducing landfill disposal bans in Queensland.
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Impact of green energy policies on electricity prices
Synergies/ROAM Consulting has assessed the costs of green energy policies from 2001-02 to 2013-14 on retail electricity costs, for both small (residential/small business) and large (consumption of greater than 5 gigawatt-hours (GWh) per annum) customers across the mainland National Electricity Market (NEM). This includes thousands of businesses, some that qualify for government assistance under the Renewable Energy Target (RET) and carbon price, and others that do not, such as non-trade exposed manufacturing, dairy farms, office ...
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Review of Western Australia’s tax system
The Economic Regulation Authority (ERA) was conducting an Inquiry into Microeconomic reform in Western Australia. The reform of state taxes was one of the key areas being explored by the ERA as part of the Inquiry. Synergies Economic Consulting was engaged by the ERA to conduct a robust analysis that informs the tax section of the ERA’s Draft Report.
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Public Transport Investment – The Value of Action versus the Cost of Inaction
Synergies Economic Consulting, in partnership with GHD, was engaged by the Australasian Railway Association (ARA) to examine traffic congestion in Australia’s capital cities and the value of action versus the cost of inaction. It focussed on the core solution to alleviating congestion, which is investment in public transport investment, particularly heavy and light rail.
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Review of the Decision Regulation Impact Statement on the introduction of national licensing of property occupations
Synergies Economic Consulting was engaged by the Office of Best Practice Regulation (OBPR) within the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) to undertake a review of the Decision Regulation Impact Statement (DRIS) released by the National Licensing Steering Committee (NLSC) earlier in 2013, which assessed the impact of the introduction of a national licensing system for property occupations. The purpose of the review was to assess the net benefits and adverse impacts the DRIS would have on ...
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Report
Impact of ceasing sand mining on North Stradbroke Island
Synergies Economic Consulting was engaged by Sibelco to conduct an economic impact assessment of two scenarios for its North Stradbroke Island (NSI) operations. This consultancy is an update of Synergies’ 2011 assessment of the contribution of mining to NSI economic and community and involved using our existing economic model of NSI to model downscaling operation and expanding operations.
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Cost-Benefit Analysis of Providing Early Intervention to Children with Autism
Synergies Economic Consulting was engaged by AEIOU to assist with drafting a submission in response to the PC issues paper that responds to the issues to be addressed in the PC inquiry that were of interest to AEIOU in terms of the impact on its future operations, particularly in relation to the provision of government assistance and the appropriate models for providing childcare and early learning services to children with developmental disabilities.
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Report
Aurizon Network’s Commercial and Regulatory Risks
Synergies provided advice to QR National supporting that a new railway which would connect a mine in the Galilee Basin with the existing Central Queensland Coal Network would provide an integrated (above and below rail) haulage service to its customer/s. The question was raised as to what the implications would be for QRN if the project was instead undertaken under a functional service delivery model in which the various elements were delivered by the relevant ...
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Advice on NBN Co Ltd’s Special Access Undertaking
Synergies was engaged by Chorus to prepare a report which compared and contrasted building block approaches for determining allowable revenue for regulated industries in Australia. The report we prepared discussed key elements of the building block approach including Regulatory Asset Base (RAB), RAB roll-forward, return on and of capital, opex and maintenance expenditure, tax, and efficiency mechanisms.
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Measuring the contribution of the Outdoor Recreation Sector in Queensland
Synergies was engaged by the Queensland Outdoor Recreation Federation (QORF) to develop a report providing an independent assessment of the financial contribution of outdoor recreation to the community. The report also outlined where further research was necessary to fully under the economic contribution of the sector.
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AARC Elimatta – Economic Impact Assessment
The project involves an open-cut pit mining thermal coal at up to 8 Mtpa run-of-mine (ROM) coal to produce 5 Mtpa of product coal for export. The project will develop of a rail line to connect the Elimatta project to the Surat Basin Rail, north of Wandoan. The development of the rail line will facilitate the development of coal reserves located to the west of the Elimatta deposit.
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Review of Labour Cost Escalation Issues under National Electricity Rules
Powerlink has asked Synergies to critically assess and provide advice in relation to the Australian Energy Regulator’s (AER’s) Draft Decision to reject Powerlink’s real labour forecasts for the 2013-17 regulatory control period and substitute its own forecasts generated by its consultant based on an alternative measure of labour costs.
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Economic Costs of Autism Spectrum Disorder in Australia
Synergies Economic Consulting was engaged by the Not for Profit Children’s Lobby Group to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of early intervention for children with autism, Cerebral Palsy, Down syndrome, hearing impairment and visual impairment. The first stage of the project involved undertaking detailed literature reviews on lifetime outcomes across the five disabilities, early intervention treatments commonly employed and also studies assessing the benefits of early intervention.
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AER Estimating a WACC for the APT Allgas Distribution Network
Synergies Economic Consulting (Synergies) has been engaged by the APA Group (APA) to review aspects of the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) to apply to the APT Allgas Energy Pty Ltd (APT Allgas) gas distribution network as part of its forthcoming review by the Australian Energy Regulator (AER).
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Proposed declaration of Sucrogen’s Herbert River tramway service network
Synergies was engaged by Corrs to assist with the preparation of its submission to the NCC in relation to an access declaration application by the North Queensland Bio-Energy Corporation Ltd (NQBE) in regards to below rail services provided on Sucrogen’s Tramway Service Network in the Herbert River district. Following the release of the NCC’s draft recommendation not to declare the below rail services of the Tramway Service Network, we prepared a supplementary expert report in ...
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ACCC’s Draft Decision re ARTC’s Hunter Valley Coal Network
This report was prepared by Synergies Economic Consulting (Synergies) at the request of the Australian Rail and Track Corporation (ARTC). The report is in response to the ACCC‟s Draft Decision in relation to the Hunter Valley Coal Network access undertaking. We have been requested to respond to four Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) parameters proposed by the ACCC.
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Service Quality Incentive Mechanism for QR Network
QR Network requested Synergies Economic Consulting review the principles underpinning the design of such a regime, and how it might be applied to QR Network, while having regard to its existing incentives and obligations. Our findings are outlined in the attached report.
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Rural Water Pricing Business and Scheme Overview
Synergies was engaged by the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) to compile a background report to inform the QCA’s investigation of the prices to apply to SunWater’s irrigation customers for the 2010/11 to 2015/16 pricing period. This report involved the analysis of a large volume of pricing and supply-related data provided by SunWater.
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SEQ Water and Wastewater Distribution/Retail Activities
In this report, Synergies provided the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) with a high level description of the physical and market characteristics of the water supply and wastewater distribution and retail activities in SEQ, and an economic analysis of the issues for access and price regulation. This included an analysis of the potential the three new Distribution Businesses to exercise market power.
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Public Benefit Test of Ban on Success Fees to Lobbyists
Synergies was engaged to assist The Department of the Premier and Cabinet in initiating a public benefit test of the effects on competition of a ban on the payment and receipt of fees to lobbyists contingent on success in the award of Government contracts. A large number of reform options were modelled initially and then refined to a smaller set of preferred options.
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Adjusting for Expected Inflation: Submission to IPART
Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) requested Synergies Economic Consulting (Synergies) to provide an opinion regarding the use of inflation-indexed swaps to estimate inflation. Historically, consistent with other regulators, lPART has applied the Fisher equation to observed yields for nominal Commonwealth Government bonds and Commonwealth Government indexed bonds.
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Review of Coal Supply Chains
Synergies reviewed the role of government in export coal supply chains in Australia which involved a report presenting a detailed description of the coal supply chains and the issues affecting the supply chain performance, and anther report which examined the existing role of government and the status of current initiatives in coal supply chains.
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Report
Benefits of Grain Express
Synergies performed a detailed analysis of the grain supply chain in Western Australia for Cooperative Bulk Handlers (CBH). This analysis involved an assessment of the grain supply chain, mapping the current information and physical flows, identifying the relevant interfaces of the logistics chain and the impediments to the supply chain achieving greater efficiency. The advice culminated in the development of a solution to reform the supply chain in order to overcome these impediments.
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Market Access Report to National Generators Forum
In October 2005, the Ministerial Council on Energy (MCE) directed the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) to consider the requirement for and scope of enhanced trading arrangements in relation to congestion management and pricing in the National Electricity Market (NEM). This investigation is referred to as the Congestion Management Review (CMR).
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