Re: NT govt may scuttle Darwin rail

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

mauried@commslab.gov.au (Maurie Daly) wrote:
> 
> When the Hawke Govt came to power , building AP to Darwin was one of their 
> primary , (in todays terms core ) election promises.
> Of course after they got in , Hawke found a heap of reasons why it should not 
> be built, mainly economic ones.
> And Tells right , AP to Darwin is totally uneconomic , bit so are a heap of 
> existing railways.
> The TAR today if it had to be built again would be totally uneconomic, as 
> would be building Broken Hill to Parkes.
> Building Badgereys Creek Airport is also totally uneconomic , but that wont 
> stop em.
> 
> It seems to me a bit hard to be criticising a private company , in this case 
> the AP consortium for not being able to raise enough money to build an 
> uneconomic railway, after all , this railway will eventually revert to Govt 
> ownership.
> There seems to be these days an ongoing trend to expect the private sector
> to do the Govts work, including raising the funds,
> What the hell do we pay taxes for?


There was an expectation from the amount of interest
shown that the funding of the line mostly by private
capital would not be a problem.  
I wonder what has changed.?

The Feds could easily make worthwhile taxation breaks
to have the thing built, but they have been avoiding
that like the plague.

----Terry Burton
[clear OZ in address for email reply]