Re: National Rail Corp

[telljb@OZozemail.com.au (< Tell >)]

"Exnarc" <gwrly@netspace.net.au> wrote:
> 
> Why????????????????
> 
> I've got a good memory, it was you liberal front rowers that refused to back
> AN back in 1975 because it was a Labor idea.
> 
> Had AN been truly a national system the Labor governments might not have
> needed to set up NRC.
> 
> Had the Liberals adopted the Whitlam's UPT concept back in 1974 we might not
> be stuck with some of the problems (like the 4D) we have now???
> 
> "Liberal" Party.  In any other field than politics they would be charged
> with misrepresentation of a product. They are Conservatives, so why do they
> hide behind the name Liberal???


Well confession time, I voted twice for Whitlam.!
Of course that was my last Labor vote, but you already
know that. :)
  
Back to my point on State Government run railways.
I have no doubt that NSW, WA and Qld in their much
publicised "re-organised, corporatised and smart
thinking" state, have the ability to run a national
rail carrier, BUT despite the glossy trade
advertisements they are still run by politicians.
If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it is a
duck.  They are still at the whim of whatever flavour
of government is in power at the time.  Forget this
crap about, "we are at arms length from government".
How often have you seen drastic changes in what happens
in any of the states after a change of government.?

Have you ever wondered why the Road Transport lobby has
been so successful, and the government rail carriers
such a dismal failure when it comes to large scale
Federal funding.?  Government employees running
railways do what they are told by their political
masters, they are not allowed to lobby like the
truckies.  If they do anything adventurous, or upset
the Minister, particularly near election time they are
smartly put back in their box or suddenly found to be
surplus to government requirements. 

Two choices, we go back to pre NRC and the hopeless
mess that existed, tick the privates off and have good
o'l governments running the lot again.  
OR we privatise all of the standard gauge network
operators, but leave the track and working to the
Federal ARTC, right through NSW to Brisbane and all the
way into Perth and the vital Broken Hill line.!

Get the States out and the Feds would be more than
willing, and even pressured by the private operators to
spend more money on the National Standard Gauge.

----Terry Burton