Re: Bracks supports VHST to Melbourne

["Dave Proctor" <daproc@spambait.ozemail.com.au>]

"Maurie Daly" <mauried@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
mauried.493.0016D199@tpg.com.au">news:mauried.493.0016D199@tpg.com.au...

> Yes , the above comments are pretty well spot on.
> Getting the private sector to build large railway projects , or indeed any
> major projects where the return on investment isnt guaranteed is very
hard.
> One also finds that usually the people who want to see the project built
or
> even the people who will build the project arnt the same people who will
> ultimately pay for the project.
> Getting equity partners (code for the people who put up the cash),usually
> requires guarantees about financial viability / profitability.
> For projects like AP to Darwin,Sydney to Canberra VFT,Sydney to Melb there
> simply arnt the guarantees of financial success.
> Lets face it , how many people who read this newsgroup would invest their
hard
> earned cash in the AP to Darwin railway.
> Maybe thats the answer , the PM could sell shares in the Railway,after all
if
> Australians can part own a telco why cant they own a railway.

And once again everyone is saying that private industry will not invest in a
VHST since the returns on their investment are not guaranteed or will be too
low to make them interested, but nobody is questioning the government
pouring billions of dollars of taxpayers money into a second Sydney airport,
an airport which, based on European experience on corridors of the same
length/journey time, and corridors with the same or less number of trips per
annum, would not be needed if the railway was built.

Now I am not suggesting for one minute that the government should build the
entire VHST using taxpayers money (although......nah, won't go down that
road), but it does seem to be somewhat hypocritical that nobody is
questioning the government funding of a second Sydney airport, funding of
roughly commensurate size.

But what really sticks in my craw is that private enterprise does not want
government funding on the VHST project - they want tax incentives, i.e. it
would be government revenue foregone. But if the project does not go ahead,
then the government would not have received that revenue anyway, so they are
in effect losing nothing. Based on what has been said about the project thus
far, it is only government approval for the tax incentives that is holding
it up. Why are they so concerned about revenue foregone?

Dave