Re: Alice Springs to Darwin line, but wait, there is more.!

["Richo" <richardc@tpg.com.au>]

The sentiments about people not giving a damn may be true

But look at Vic - extra roads to Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo promised by
Kennett and he had his backside kicked in those areas.

Bracks only promised a couple of sweeteners to those areas - $20 million for
rail improvements (don't know what)

It makes me upset everytime I recall that until the early 70s they had the
Mungindi rail motor pottering around out woop woop wasting taxpayers money
that should have been spent BACK THEN on real improvements - deviations,
daylighting, regauging, heavier rail and concrete sleepers, big locos and
efficient safeworking. The huge buckets of money the government put into
railway operations that could have been spent on efficiency mean that all
the jobs that were lost could have been saved as the rail market share would
be much greater than it is now. It is definitely robbing peter to pay paul,
as the money that was being wasted on rural passenger services (and used to
subsidise city commuters) could have built a system that would be world's
best practice.

I look around me - other countries charge far more for their rail services
and have better services to show for them. It costs a couple of hundred
dollars to travel by train in Japan between major cities (but so does flying
and the experience is akin to flying). Speedrail, the Brisbane Airport Line,
the Bondi Beach line and the Sydney Airport stations are the way to go -
charge people a lot more for rail services but make the services a lot
better.

< Tell > <telljb@OZozemail.com.au> wrote in message
Q48AODoUL4aWXSFDwugeROB674Ja@4ax.com">news:Q48AODoUL4aWXSFDwugeROB674Ja@4ax.com...
> "Bill Miller" <backtran@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> >
> > Most of the taxes you mention are revenue collection exercises that ALL
> > businesses pay. To say that the road industry is short changed by not
having
> > all the 15.5bn put back in would be the same as a factory owner claiming
the
> > government should build his factory for him simply because he pays
taxes. To
> > compare this to the 150m on the rail excise is simply not comparing
equals.
> >
> > If trucks have road user charges then these (and only these) should be
put
> > back into roads. The balance of tax is a burden everyone should bear and
> > goes into consoldated revenue.
>
>
> OK, where do we start Bill.?
>
> Please advise what you would charge and how you would
> arrange for collection.  The road transport industry is
> so encompassing from local, country, interstate and
> long haul.  How about trucks that cart where there has
> never been rail and never likely to be.  The same
> vehicles could bob up in a road near you, minus a few
> trailers of course.  An army of public servants could
> not administer this.
>
> I guess what a lot of you folks miss, is the fact that
> the States have already spent untold $BILLIONS on
> railways since way back when.  ......It has failed.
> Latter day politicians, apart from election time, could
> not give two hoots about rail and neither could the
> majority of Australians.  Sad but true.
>
> My guess is, that rail has to get a lot smarter than it
> has been in the past.  NRC have the opportunity, after
> all it was given to them on a plate by a previous
> Federal Government.  BUT we have the age old problem of
> States and their "rights" and NRC have found what the
> previous Commonwealth rail operators knew all along.
>
> ----Terry Burton
> Alice Springs NT
> << remove OZ for Email reply.>>




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