Rod Sims may have exited Australia’s competition watchdog but the former regulator is not done fighting prospective monopolies, now turning his attention to one of the nation’s biggest infrastructure projects: the $14 billion Inland Rail.

Since retiring from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission last year after a decade in the chairman’s seat, Sims has had the satisfaction of seeing the NSW government scrap the “outrageous” fees imposed on the Port of Newcastle in 2013 to try to stop it from competing with Port Botany in handling container goods.