More investment in rail: economist

[dbromage@fang.omni.com.au (David Bromage)]

>From last night's 7.30 Report. I was given advance notice that this was
going to be on, so I taped it to get the quotes right. It was a long item
about the Feds spending money partly as a result of the recent state
elections, and partly to kick start a sluggish economy. The impurtant bit
it transcribed.


Chris Richardson [from Access Economics]: The real danger is that the
traditional response to a burst of populism is for spending your way out
of trouble. Politicians have typically done that, all it does is typically
waste taxpayers' money. Certainly there is good spending that can be done
in Australia's regions. Some of its infrastructure is creaking and in
desperate need of new investment.

Alan Kohler [Reporter]: True to form, just as John Howard's 7:30 Report
interview was going to air last night, he was in Darwin, promising to
spend more money on the Alice Springs to Darwin railway.

John Howard: We decided to go the extra distance. I might say, in the face
of criticism from some people who look at government decisions entirely in
the narrow confines of pure economics, that we decided to go the extra
distance because we think there's a nation-building component in this
railway.

Chris Richardson: The railway is an absolute classic. A lot of Australia's
transport should be carried by rail. It's not at the moment because we
have a very inefficient system because we haven't spent enough in times
past. There's a good case there. But invest, don't waste money.


Cheers
David