>A special quote: and exactly as reported with no comments necesary!
>Privatisation
>COUNTRY RAIL SALE NO CASH WINDFALL
>by Sandra McKay,
>transport reporter
> The State Government may not have saved a cent from privatising two
>country rail lines and could repeat its mistakes when it sells the entire
>transport network next year, the auditor-general has warned.
The government subsidises the private bus network to the amount of
$257 million. It subsidises the rail passenger system for $197
million.
And, like as if newspapers always tell the truth (which they don't) or
come to the most intelligent conclusions (ditto). They are interested
in selling newspapers, if telling incomplete stories sells them, so be
it.
You can be assured that should the rail line to Warrnambool close and
the residents along the line should blockade the last train, the
newspapers will be **most sympathetic** to them and be at the
forefront in championing their cause to the Kennet Gestapo, ignoring
the fact that they, in all likelihood, assisted in its demise.
The fact that government needs to subsidise its passenger transport
network is an accepted fact-of-life. What the Kennett government has
been trying to do is to provide such subsidy at the cheapest possible
price. With the penny-pinching government the way it is, if it could
be shown them that a bus service could run the Warrnambool service
cheaper than rail, the Kennett government, no friend of rail, would
close it down.
Don't forget, the reason why the Portland, Yaapeet and Hopetoun lines
were not closed down with the conversion of the standard guage to
Adelaide was because it was cheaper to change gauge than the extra
cost of road maintenance. And that, probably, is one reason why the
line is still open to Warrnambool rather than have an extra 200,000
odd cars on the road each year between Warrnambool and Melbourne.
Les Brown