Infrastructure

One day, Gina Rinehart is projected to be worth $100 billion. In the past, I’ve argued she should use a big chunk of that money to do something grand, like fund an entire Aussie space program.

So imagine what two particularly philanthropic Ginas could do if they both decided to invest $100 billion into Australian infrastructure.

According to reports this week, during secret mining tax negotiations the day before he was knifed as Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd struck an in-principle deal with mining exec Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest that would’ve allowed mining companies to avoid liability for the 40 per cent mining tax by instead writing off their capital expenditure on Australian infrastructure. Estimates suggested the plan would’ve pumped at least $200 billion into Australian infrastructure every five years. A huge deal for the country.

Continue reading "Who wants to win $200 billion in infrastructure?" »

This week’s Angry Cripple column is by Tom Bridge, who graduated from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) with a Bachelor of Arts, completing a double major in Ethics and Human Rights and Political Studies. He was born with Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus and blogs at Aussie Pollies...

Most people run a mile from the idea of the government regulating too many aspects of their lives. But in light of the way people with a disability have been dealt with - or not dealt with - particularly since de-institutionalisation, a strong argument exists for much more government interference. It would be beneficial if the three different levels of government ran interference and legislated for much stronger, even mandatory accessibility provisions.

Governments of both political persuasions at the local state and federal level have baulked at any major action on accessibility for some years now and that is not good considering the growing number of people with a disability, including the ageing population who will also face accessibility issues.

Continue reading "Build the access bridge so people can get over it" »

If you were to choose one place which symbolised the challenges facing the city of Sydney, it would be hard to go past the permanent disaster area that is the Kingsford Smith Airport.

With a continuing argument about whether the damn thing should even be there at all, Sydney Airport, like the city itself, is a disorganised work in progress, the subject of upgrades which no sooner finish than another one begins. It’s a stressful place. It’s expensive. It consistently ranks last in surveys of national airports, principally because it has been designed and redesigned without its human users in mind.

It is six months since NSW Labor was deservedly pummelled at the ballot box ushering in what was billed as a new era of accountability and renewal under the Coalition Government of Premier Barry O’Farrell. The one thing which has changed is an end to the constant procession of low-rent ministerial scandals which made the tail end of Labor’s rule seem like the last days of Rome. But in terms of the more pressing policy challenge of getting some life and direction into the place, it has been a bleakly disappointing start.

Continue reading "In NSW politics winning is more important than policy" »

The concept of high speed rail travel was dismissed by 19th century scientist Professor Dionysius Lardner, who warned that “passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia”.

The passage of time (and the development of physics) has proved Lardner wrong, with the proliferation of extensive high speed rail networks on every inhabited continent - except for Australia.

That’s not to say it has not been considered here. Far from it. Australia has been through at least three serious considerations of High Speed Rail (HSR) in the past 30 years.

Continue reading "First build the rail corridors, then the fast trains" »

So we’re a step further down the track to blowing $110 billion of taxpayer’s money on a new high speed rail network which will do exactly what planes do, only three times slower. Woohoo for progress.

Yesterday’s $20 million feasibility report was enthusiastically greeted by many, even though Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese admitted our relatively small population meant the price tag could be hard to justify.

He’s not wrong. Every other country with high speed rail, like Japan and China and France and Spain, has a far denser population than ours. In Australia, economies of scale mean this thing would be unlikely ever to pay for itself.

Continue reading "Hugging the rails on a fast track to nowhere" »

We South Australians have some harebrained ideas sometimes. This week, Adelaide City Council decided to push ahead with multi-million dollar plans to revitalise the dreary and deserted Victoria Square into a major CBD hub.

That’s despite the fact that the State Government is already pushing ahead with its own multi-BILLION dollar plans to revitalise the nearby Riverbank precinct as the new city’s heart and soul.

After lengthy debate on Tuesday night, Adelaide City Council voted to invest $11.5 million on Victoria Square – despite the fact that there’s no commitment from the state or federal government to cough up the $100 million needed to complete the project.

Continue reading "How many revamped precincts does one city need?" »

As friends and family gathered to celebrate my friend Tom Uren’s 90th birthday recently, he had many reasons to be proud of his contribution to Australia.  History books abound that record the unique achievements of the Whitlam Government in which Tom was a senior figure. But there’s a big one that is barely remembered – the role the pair played in getting rid of the septic tank.

These famously malodorous mosquito and cockroach breeding pits lay beneath the lawns of suburban homes everywhere, including the then home of Prime Minister Whitlam in western Sydney. 

As Tom tells it, by the time he was elected to power Gough had decided enough was enough – a modern Australia deserved a modern sewerage system. So he appointed his Minister for Urban and Regional Development, Tom Uren, to clean up the country by funding new sewerage plants across urban Australia.

Continue reading "Getting rid of septic tanks and other Labor achievements" »

As the National Broadband Network juggernaut rolls on, one has to wonder if any thought has been given to the obvious danger that the NBN may fail. NBN supporters assume that it will succeed. This crash through or crash approach is a very dangerous way to pursue government policy objectives.

In this context, failure can mean a number of things. For starters, the NBN could fail financially. This could include construction costs spiralling out of control where, for example, labour and skills shortages drive up project costs.

The NBN Corporate Plan itself reveals that at the height of construction up to 6,000 premises per day will be connected to the NBN. That’s a lot of premises and a lot of skilled labour which means lots of risk to the NBN. Any delay in connecting such a larger number of premises would delay completion of the NBN. Any delay would substantially increase project costs and threaten the financial viability of the NBN.

Continue reading "The NBN juggernaut could turn into a white elephant" »

We have a remarkable confluence of disasters.

Not only have individuals suffered massive losses from the recent floods - partly because of the lack of an effective insurance market - but so has the community at large.

Massive amounts of infrastructure - roads, bridges, rail and so on - have been damaged by the floods and the government is faced with paying billions of dollars to repair and replace this infrastructure. Although local and state government will need to take responsibility for this, the funding will mostly come from the Commonwealth Government.

Continue reading "$10 billion in bonds to kill two birds with one stone" »

While devastating floodwaters recede in the north even as they rise in the south, Australians are understandably shocked by what has occurred in the past few weeks.

The extent of the tragedy and loss of life, property and infrastructure is indeed numbing.  It is heartbreaking.  And it is incomprehensible to those of us not directly involved.

But the downpour, while rare, is not of itself unique.

Continue reading "History tells us floods are natural" »

Tonight, the City of Sydney will squeeze into its glad rags and put on the pyrotechnic razzle dazzle that has become the standard way to see in the New Year.

As always, event organisers have promised this year it’ll be bigger, bolder and with added bang for our $5 million bucks. 

In recent years, they city’s grandiose flair for making stuff explode and decorating the Harbour Bridge has given Sydney a cocky strut.

Continue reading "Sydney sparkles to hide the rot beneath" »

Julia Gillard and Stephen Conroy have just released the full business plan for the National Broadband Network, saying taxpayers would get a 7 per cent return on their $27.5 billion investment, and it would take nine years for the network to reach 10 million Australian households.

The business plan foreshadowed wholesale prices of $24 per month for the basic 12 Mbps, and $38 for 100 Mbps. But neither Gillard, nor Conroy, would speculated on what a fair retail cost for consumers would be.

The Prime Minister would only say that with greater competition would come lower prices for householders. What would you be prepared to pay for the standard or ultra-fast fiber packages set to be rolled out over the next decade?

In just a few short weeks population policy has turned into a panacea for just about every problem of the modern economy - from immigration to water management and more. Luckily for us, we can now lay these problems at the feet of the world’s first Population Minister, Tony Burke.

Never mind that many of these problems that have been around for decades, they are now gathering under the banner of ‘population policy’, effectively making Tony Burke the new Minister for Everyone and Everything.

For starters the Minister will need to strike a balance between economic growth and environmental sustainability, and tackle the impact of population growth on urban planning, transport, housing, water (and it seems just about every other type of infrastructure).

Continue reading "“Population” the new phrase for everything going wrong" »

There’s a laundry list of reasons Melbourne could probably already be regarded as Australia’s most prestigious city over Sydney. It hosts the Australian Open, the Melbourne Cup and various other prestige horse races, the AFL Grand Final, and the Formula 1 Grand Prix. The last time Tiger Woods came to Australia, he was in Melbourne.

What has Sydney got to compete as regular international attractions? There are a couple of world-class restaurants with obscenely-priced menus and a rarely-used, difficult-to-get-to Olympic stadium. There is the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, though it should be noted that this features a bunch of people with lots of money and significant business connections getting out of the joint as fast as they possibly can.

If size does matter in the battle for status as the nation’s most prestigious city, it now looks likely Melbourne will be bigger than Sydney in the not-too-distant future. A spokesman for the developer lobby that commissioned the report remarked that Sydney had the hallmarks of “a global city in decline”.

Continue reading "Against Melbourne, housing the least of Sydney’s worries" »

As Tory wrote yesterday The Punch conducted a survey on attitudes to population growth last week. One question we asked was what people thought of the idea of building a new city, and 70 per cent said yes. So given there’s probably broad support for building a new city, the next question is: where should it be? There are some suggestions in already but we’d like to hear your thoughts in the comments - some of the initial suggestions are in this map and we’ll add to it as your ideas come in.

View Location for a new Australian city? in a larger map

Have a click around the map: zoom in and check out the various icons - there’s a little summary with each location and why they might work - or you can see a full-size version of the map here. But be bold and make your own suggestions in the comments below and we’ll keep building the map out.

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Proponents of chaos theory would have enjoyed being in Sydney this week where an unremarkable collision between two trucks generated a spirited public discussion about population policy.

The accident itself and its comical aftermath was merely the latest demonstration by the NSW Government that it would be flat out organising a chook raffle, with the hated Roads and Traffic Authority playing the starring role.

Late Tuesday morning and well out of peak hour, two trucks collided on the F3, the busy northern freeway which connects Sydney to the Central Coast. No-one died, but one of the truck drivers had to be taken to hospital by helicopter, and there were concerns for public safety as one of the trucks was carrying fuel. It took the RTA almost five hours to decide that the fuel needed to be siphoned from the truck.

Continue reading "The tiny road bingle behind a huge national debate" »

So we now have an official “Population Minister” to front Kevin Rudd’s mega-Australia vision of a hugely expanded population of 36 million by 2050.

I can’t help but feel it’s a bit like the average family inviting 3 strangers as permanent house-guests to live with them forever and their only preparation is hiring a door-man to greet them.
No thought as to where they’ll actually sleep (the one spare room is currently a study). No calculation of whether the family can afford the extra food, water and electricity bills that will now be a permanent added cost to the household budget. No consideration of how the new living arrangements will actually impact on the quality of life the family currently has.

Continue reading "Population: Labor welcomes 15 million new homebuyers" »

Kevin Rudd needs more Pink Floyd.  The Floyd’s classic lyrics from The Wall album denigrate the standard of teachers and curriculum as “just another brick in the wall”.

I’m sure David Gilmour, Roger Waters and other band members would be amazed to learn that thirty years later Australia is attempting an Education Revolution based wholly on bricks in the wall.  Okay, maybe I oversimplify it.  It’s not just bricks, there’s a range of other building products going into Kevin and Julia’s fabulously named ‘Building the Education Revolution’ program.

Now I don’t mean to overload on dark sarcasm.  But isn’t an education revolution far more than bricks and mortar?  How about first class curriculum?  Higher teacher standards?  Modern learning tools?  Smaller class sizes?  Advancing both the vocational and the academic?

Or, how about a controversial three C’s for our education system – competition, choice and control?  These factors, which can empower families, parents and students while encouraging excellence from teachers and schools, seem to be sorely lacking in any current revolutionary discussions.

Continue reading "Viva the voucher based education revolution" »

Whilst Australia’s economy is facing enormous challenges arising from the impact of the global recession, there is another story emerging.

It’s a story of consumer spending holding up, of the housing market remaining strong, and of companies sharing around the burden by shortening hours to keep employees in jobs.

We are not out of the woods yet, but in the short-term the savage downturn that’s hit many other countries so hard, has been averted here in Australia.  I believe this has happened because the Government has displayed two important strengths in a time of crisis: political courage and long-term vision. 

Continue reading "We have the chance right now to build a better nation" »

In his great book City of Quartz urban geographer Mike Davis describes the lengths to which the City of Los Angeles has gone to make life difficult on its own people, reaching its zenith with the creation of “the bum-proof bench”, a specially-designed park bench which is curved so that homeless people can’t sleep on it.

If Mike ever comes to Australia he won’t have to go very far to find a similar level of designed hostility towards the public - he’ll have landed right next to it.

Already voted the worst airport in Australia, Sydney Airport has just become a whole lot more unpleasant with its management closing a turning lane for motorists – forcing them to use the exorbitant Macquarie Bank-owned carpark, or exit the airport altogether.

Without any public announcement, Sydney Airports Corporation has placed yellow road blocks and a no-exit sign on what for years had been a public turning lane which let motorists do a lap as they waited to pick and family and friends whose flights had been delayed.

Continue reading "The worst piece of infrastructure in Australia" »

Will the Bogans in the House please show up?

Yesterday, John Cobb extended the meaning of ‘bogan’ to include ‘not showing up’.

I met with his constituents, the Bogan Shire Council, yesterday and listened to their case for a $6 million heated swimming pool.

Continue reading "Marrickville mauler hits back at bogan Nationals" »

It was a meeting last week with a fired up General Manager of the Bogan Shire Council, Mike Brady, and the Deputy Mayor Jim Hemstead over the town’s swimming pool which really got me thinking about bogans.

The news was full of chk-chk-boom bogans, and to top it off I even had 30 kids from Bogan Shire’s St Josephs School come into the Parliamentary office whilst on an excursion to Canberra.

After a moment of quiet reflection I am now convinced there is a bit of bogan in every Australian. I realise the statement may shock and dismay some of our nation’s more refined citizens.

Continue reading "On the origins of the bogan as a species" »

In their opposition to the Rudd Government’s nation building agenda the Liberals and Nationals have reminded the Australian public that infrastructure development remains a fundamental distinction between Labor and our conservative opponents.

A fundamental fact that the Coalition has never understood is that infrastructure investment is not just a cost – it is a long term investment in the productive economy.

Investment in infrastructure generates higher returns than investment in other sectors of the economy.

Continue reading "Sorry Bronnie, lazy Libs don’t care about nation-building" »

The infrastructure spending for big-ticket rail, road and port projects is a noble measure aimed at two ends stimulating the economy in the medium term, and delivering vital new services for communities in the longer term.

The only trouble is the alarmingly poor calibre of some of the state governments and bureaucracies which will be entrusted with its delivery.

Chief among them is the Rees Government, which hot on the heels of the Iemma Government, once known as the Carr Government, has achieved world’s best practice in cocking up infrastructure projects.

Continue reading "Would you give $22 billion dollars to this man?" »