Re: More investment in rail: economist

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

On Wed, 21 Feb 2001 00:34:57 GMT, dbromage@fang.omni.com.au (David
Bromage) wrote:

>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


And here is a classic case of stupidity.
We have a very inefficient rail system caued by years of neglect,so
lets fix it by building AP to Darwin.
How the hell does this fix anything.
We will still have an inefficient rail system.
How about fixing what we already have so that it actually gets used
properly.
Why are there 4500 trucks a night using the Hume Highway when there is
a parallel and grossly underused railway line right alongside.
How about re aligning Junee to Goulburn to get rid of the 1:40
grades,or 12 chain radius curves or  getting rid of the absurd track
access charges.

No chance of anything like this happening of course.
Politicians like to be seen opening new things, not upgrading existing
ones.



MD