IF Australian wool textile managing director Michael Fitzsimons thought he might get a level playing field when his wool fabric was tested against an imported moquette fabric for the multi-million dollar NSW rail upgrade fitting, he was mistaken.
After the NSW Minister for Transport Minister David Campbell and NSW railway company Rail Corp promised to complete an independent cost analysis of the Australian-made Instyle wool product against a moquette fabric and jacquard fabrics it was considering for train seats, Mr Fitzsimons said nothing was followed up.
Mr Fitzsimons said Instyle’s Australian made and manufactured, 100 per cent Australian Merino wool fabric did not even make it to the comparative stage, and yet a nine-page report sent via Mr Campbell said the decision was final.
"The Australian textile industry is going through a difficult period and this order would have been a very valuable contract," Mr Fitzsimons said.
The acknowledgement that a British produced Moquette would be sourced for the rail upgrade comes after months of campaigning by Instyle and its consortium including Macquarie Textiles and Geelong Textiles and recently with assistance from the Australian Wool innovation.
"We have written letters to Rail Corp, rung them and have not received a single reply. It is just arrogance," he said.
"They haven’t taken into account Australian textile workers, Australian wool producers or the Australian environment.
"Premier Rees reports he wants to push Australian jobs and save environment - this is a project he should be stepping in on."
Mr Fitzsimons said he was concerned about the non-existent fire standard requirements in Rail Corp's specification.
"The fire specifications were decribed by the CSIRO as totally ridiculous," he said.
The $200 million PPP railway project is set to deliver 626 new eight-car, double-deck and air-conditioned trains to NSW by 2013.
Mr Fitzsimons said: "They are saying our wool product would be heavier and less cost-efficient but it was not even trialled."
He said the moquette fabric on the rail seats would add an extra 50 tonnes of weight, resulting in more gas emissions than would his Australian Ethno-wool product.
Rail Corp communications manager Paul Rae confirmed it had completed a financial and economic appraisal review that covered a range of performance criteria including the through-life durability, maintenance and ongoing replacement costs of seating fabric.
It definitively concluded moquette provides value for money with particular regard to lifecycle costs over a 30-year contract term.
Mr Rae said the train builder, Downer EDI Rail, which had completed the fabric study identified moquette fabric from a United Kingdom based company, Holdworth, as "most closely meeting Rail Corp’s contract specifications".
He said Moquette comprised 85 per cent wool, with the majority being fine wool sourced from Australia.
Mr Fitzsimons denied moquette fabric used fine wool, saying it always contained course wool typically sourced from South Africa or New Zealand.
Email a friend