Audit Objective
This report summarises the results of our financial audits of the six state-owned rail and ports entities.
Overview
The state’s six rail and port entities deliver a wide range of services, providing passenger and freight facilities to generate profit and benefit the public. These entities include the Queensland Rail Group (including Queensland Rail Transit Authority and Queensland Rail Limited), Far North Queensland Ports Corporation Limited, Port of Townsville Limited, North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation Limited, and Gladstone Ports Corporation Limited.
Queensland Rail Group is Queensland’s railway manager and operator, servicing the passenger, tourism, resources and freight customer markets across more than 6 500 kilometres of track and third-party access.
The port entities are part of Queensland’s network of 20 ports, which ranges from small community ports to large coal export terminals and a capital city multi-cargo port. The four government-owned port corporations manage 19 of these ports, and a private company manages the Port of Brisbane.
Audit results
We issued unmodified audit opinions on all rail and port entities' financial statements this year within the statutory deadline of 31 August 2017. We do this when the financial statements are prepared in accordance with the relevant legislative and Australian accounting standards. In doing so, we confirm that readers can rely upon the audited financial statements.
Rail and port entities used good financial reporting practices to produce good quality financial statements for 2016–17 in a timely manner.
None of the six subsidiary companies across the rail and ports sector prepared financial statements for 2016–17. These entities were either dormant or small, and therefore did not need to prepare financial statements under the Corporations Act 2001.
QR is also subject to regulatory oversight by the Queensland Competition Authority for its below-rail services. These services relate to the management of the track, while above‑rail services relate to the operation of trains. We issued an unmodified opinion on the 2015–16 regulatory financial statements for below-rail services provided by QR.
