Re: Alice-Darwin rail link investor pulls out

[mauried@tpg.com.au (Maurie Daly)]

On Thu, 25 Jan 2001 00:16:46 GMT, dbromage@fang.omni.com.au (David
Bromage) wrote:

>The Alice Springs-to-Darwin railway, the major plank in the federal
>Government's national infrastructure program, has been hit by the
>withdrawal of one of its major investors.
>
>http://www.theaustralian.com.au/common/story_page/0,4511,1644759%255E2702,00.html


Is anyone actually surprised at this .?
Since day 1 when it was required that the majority of the finance be
raised by the private sector , all of the then economic analyses of
this project classed it as risky to very risky.
Even the 3 Governments involved ,namely the SA,NT and Feds have
refused to guarantee the economic viability of this project , unlike
other BOOT projects in this country where the Govts have had to
underwrite the economic risks.

The simplest way for this project to go ahead, given that all 3
govermnets keep stating that they support it (whatever that means) is
for the project to be totally Government funded,as have been up until
now all the existing national SG rail network.
We could keep stuffing around forever waiting for the consortium to
raise the finances,and lets face it they have been trying now for 3
years.

MD