Aiden;
In the longer run they may have to go back to drovers.

I notice that in Europe they are using complete truck & trailer on
flat cars with passenger cars for truck drivers.
Seems a lot of weight being moved unnecessarily.
It may work where the truck routes are either through long tunnels or
over difficult passes over the Alps.

I wonder if the loading gauge between Sydney and Parkes could take
the truck & trailer

Bazz,

If the road vehicles were on low-loader wagons then they'd probably pass the loading gauge but there is another problem, the wheel bearings on trucks can suffer damage when subjected to vibration whilst carrying a load but not rotating.
One solution that would reduce pollution is to re-introduce coal fired steam locomotives and gradually cut our coal exports.

Aiden, the amount of vibration on European tracks would be quite minor,
I think than here due to higher railbed standards.
It does not seem to get a mention in the articles I saw.
I think the construction costs and maintenance would make a large fleet
of steam locomotives much more expensive than a fleet of electric locomotives.
Personally I just love to see steam locos in full flight but other
than as a museum live machine, I am afraid their day has gone.
My very limited time on the footplate as a visitor shows me that these
days you could never get anyone to do the job of driving these beasts.

Sigh !

Campbell Newman's call of a snap election in Queensland can only be seen as one of the biggest political blunders ever in Australia. It is my belief the privatization issue was a major contributing factor in Newman's defeat. Mike Baird in NSW is about to face the music as well. Like Newman, Baird is a fervent disciple of privatization, both from a conservative philosophical perspective, and a so called economic rationalists point of view.
Baird's big call is for the privatization of the states electricity poles and wires, Conservative Labor which was responsible for the sell off of the states electricity retailers and some of its generating capacity, now claims to oppose the Baird planned sell off, but do they, given their pathetic track record on the issue which seen massive price rises for consumers following their privatize deal.
Like our opposition to Labor's power sell off, the Greens strongly oppose Baird's privatization plans, and our spokesperson John Kaye put together a compelling argument in support of Greens policy.

http://www.johnkaye.org.au/campaigns/no-power-privatisation/

As I said earlier, government should not get into business unless it simply cannot avoid it.
If you don't have that belief where does it end ?
It ends up with a Russia or East Germany.

It follows that a government should get out of business if it can do so
in a reasonable financial manner.
It seems that we will not end up with a power network like we
now have, because nuclear power seems politically impossible.
There being no other equivalent power source coming over the horizon,
then we will be dependant on localised dispersed power generation
with solar panels on every building and banks of batteries, of whatever type will be the most suitable.

With that in mind it seems a good idea to get rid of the HV distribution,
substations, poles & wires before the prospective buyers wake up.

As it is at present, if we do not sell the distribution system then
we must build nuclear power stations.
There is no alternative.

If you don't like that, then what is your alternative ?

Bazz, neither Russia nor East Germany were the end result of government getting into business; rather they were the result of government deciding to take everything over and restrict the freedom of the people.

Another option for the grid in Queensland is for the government to stop trying to achieve a commercial return on the asset value, and instead modify it to accept distributed power sources. This will make it cheaper than everyone having to rely on expensive batteries.