into the Public Transport Corporation and suburban services were rebranded as "The Met". In 1993, long-distance country rail services previously run by the government-owned operator V/Line were offered to private operators. Several rail services were replaced by road coach services. The first private operator in Victoria was the West Coast Railway, which successfully tendered to operate the railway to Warrnambool. In 1993 Professor Fred Hilmer presented the findings of the National Competition Policy Review Committee, known as the Hilmer Report, leading to the introduction of a National Competition Policy in 1995. One effect was to allow new rail freight operators to establish operations in Victoria. Specialised Container Transport began operating trains to Perth in 1995 and Great Northern Rail Services started intrastate operations. Privatisation of the Public Transport Corporation commenced under the Kennett Government of the 1990s. V/Line was split into separate freight and passenger divisions, and "The Met" was divided into Hillside Trains and Bayside Trains. These separate bodies were all sold separately in 1999: V/Line Freight and the rural intrastate network to Freight Victoria, a consortium led by American operator RailAmerica; Hillside Trains and track lease to Connex Melbourne; and V/Line Passenger and Bayside Trains, renamed M>Train and with its track lease, to British operator National Express. On 16 December 2002, National Express announced their intention to withdraw financial support from their rail operations in Victoria, including V/Line Passenger and M>Train. The government temporarily resumed control of its systems through receivers and decided to retender the metropolitan rail network to a single operator; Connex won the contract and took control of the entire metropolitan system in February 2004. Meanwhile, in July 2003, the government announced its intention to retain V/Line Passenger in public ownership, and set up the state-owned V/Line Corporation, which bought the operator out of receivership on 1 October 2003. 16 August 2004 saw the Freight Victoria business and rural track lease was purchased by Pacific National, but by November 2006 they entered into an agreement to sell the track lease back to the Victorian Government for $133.8 million, with the sale completed on 7 May 2007 and V/Line becoming track manager. In December 2007, Pacific National announced plans to sell or close its grain transport and Portlink rural container business operations in Victoria. The decision has been criticised as it will force grain growers to use higher cost road transport to transport the annual grain