Re: No speedrail, Badgerys creek or Kurnell

[Tell <just@hate.spammers.com>]

Interesting to hear a spokesman say that the Federal,
NT and SA governments were willing to put money in the
Alice to Darwin line which in their words was
"doubtful" and of "little value" when compared with
their project.!

I agree, there are no politicians with vision, its all
about marginal seats and the next election, internal
party power brokers, union bosses, big biz bosses and
our vocal minority groups.

....Tell
 

>mauried@tpg.com.au (Maurie Daly) wrote:
> 
> Whilst I agree that the current breed of politicians have about as
> much foresight as a beetle in a matchbox, its worth remembering that
> historically railways in this country have always been a State
> responsibility.
> Just about all the railways in this country were State built.
> The only Federal involvement was the TAR and the CAR and this was 
> from my reading of the historical background quite reluctant.
> There are no precedents at all for large scale private sector rail
> projects that require federal involvement.
> The Iron Ore railways in WA which can be equated as being large scale 
> private railways were built purely with agreements between the mining
> companies and the State Govt of WA, minimal Federal Govt being
> involved.
> In short , I suspect that the Feds simply dont know what to do, and
> their advisers dont know what to do either,so the safest approach is
> to do nothing.
> Unlike the building of the TAR , which was essential for the
> development of the State of WA, there inst an essential reason to have
> a VFT,nor is there an essential reason to have any large scale rail
> infrastructure developments , with the exception of AP to darwin which
> is a legislated requirement, albeit on a non legislated time frame.
> 
> If there are to be any large scale private rail projects built, the
> Feds should come out and state their position on tax concessions,
> federal financing etc ,otherwise nothing will happen.
> Foreign investors simply wont invest in Aus rail projects because of
> the uncertainty caused by Federal Govt indecision.
> 
> MD
>