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Some of the possible reasoning behind the decision.
The Premier said yesterday the business case for Stage 1 of the freeway is positive. However he won’t release the business case publicly, he says, because that could adversely affect the price the government would have to offer potential private sector participants.
Voters make many more car trips than public transport trips. Circa 90% of all motorised travel in the Melbourne metropolitan area is by car. Only around 10% is by public transport. An ABS survey found 62% of Melburnians hadn’t used public transport in the preceding four weeks.
A significant proportion of the risk-bearing funding for the freeway is expected to be sourced from the private sector, helping the government to preserve its AAA credit rating. All of the funding for the rail line would need to come from government.
Tony Abbott says he’ll provide $1.5 billion for the freeway if he’s elected Prime Minister in September. He’s explicitly said he won’t fund urban public transport. Julia Gillard hasn’t promised funding for either project (although she’s promised $1.5 billion for a new freeway in Sydney).
New urban public transport investments incur high ongoing subsidies since farebox revenue only recovers about a third of operating costs. Toll roads recover all their operating costs.
The advantages of rail over roads are mostly in economic costs i.e. externalities. Many of these costs are diffuse and don’t affect the state budget directly, or if they do it’s often well into the future when “it’s somebody else’s problem”.
The freeway attracts a wide range of interest groups e.g. it will be used for intra-metropolitan freight and non CBD business-to-business trips. These aren’t served as well by rail.
Although new freeways start to congest in peak periods after a relatively short period due to induced demand, they provide much faster trips in off-peak periods. That benefit is usually sustained for many years.
The freeway does double-duty – it provides political cover for the government to delay committing to a rail line to Doncaster.
The cleverly-named East West Link will fill in a “missing link” in the freeway network. Politicians know that emphasising the network effect is an appealing argument.
There’s opposition to Melbourne Metro from within the ranks of public transport advocates..
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http://blogs.crikey.com.au/theurbanist/2013/05/09/why-do-governments-favour-road-over-rail-in-cities/
 
Just when you pure blue bloods thought every thing would transition like clockwork ...

The climate change commission has apparently (according to abc) defied the gov shut down and decided to continue to operate on a voluntary basis.

Well a small number of us while wishing for success, foreshadowed holes in Abbotts policy and strategy.

This is just the sort of short-sightedness that now demands he should have put more emphasis on strengthening the likes of the CSIRO to overshadow the biased climate commission to a side show by comparison.
 
drsmith said:
Labor wasting taxpayers money on them when they didn't have to.

That'd be right. ;)
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I'll pay the irony on that one... but it demonstrates the point I keep trying to make about you hard core blue bloods being a bit over cocky with your position and underestimating the tenacity of some of the extreme left, hard core red bloods.

Didn't you anticipate some of these old chooks would keep jumping and squawking around for ages even after you cut off their food supply?

On the overconfidence point again... and listening to Morrison squawking on again about returning to like Howard used to do it... can you suggest why some of this gov are so obsessed with idolising Howard?

Are they so full of themselves too (the Rudd and Gillard disease) that they are oblivious to how Howard lost government and their persistent squawking about him, feeding concern that this largely old Howard ministry might literally revert back to Howards policies akin to workchoices and a freer reign for big business... and have you back in opposition quicker than you think?
 
drsmith said:
Labor wasting taxpayers money on them when they didn't have to.

That'd be right. ;)
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+1. Flannery and co can do what they like if we're not paying for it any more.

I'm sure you'll be right up there with your donation to keep them going, Whiskers.

Meantime, loyal Labor supporter, radio presenter Tony Delroy with his nationwide talkback program tonight has again not only repeated a complete untruth, but exaggerated it beyond what even Kevin Rudd claimed, in saying 90% of the asylum seekers from Nauru were ultimately settled in Australia.

The figure was just 43%.
http://www.politifact.com.au/truth-...vin-rudd/how-many-asylum-seekers-ended-austr/
Our ruling

In the leaders’ debate, Rudd said 70% of the people who went to Nauru ended up in Australia as permanent residents later.

We checked the numbers. Rudd should have said 70% of cases were resettled in Australia and other countries (New Zealand making up the majority of the rest). Only 43% of those taken to Nauru or Manus Island were actually resettled in Australia. Abbott’s figures were much closer - accurate, when allowing for rounding.

We rate Rudd’s statement False.
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I've just sent an email to Mr Delroy on the above, but will not, of course, receive a reply, and neither will it daunt him in his quest to rubbish the government on every available occasion.
 
Julia said:
+1. Flannery and co can do what they like if we're not paying for it any more.

I'm sure you'll be right up there with your donation to keep them going, Whiskers.

Meantime, loyal Labor supporter, radio presenter Tony Delroy with his nationwide talkback program tonight has again not only repeated a complete untruth, but exaggerated it beyond what even Kevin Rudd claimed...
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Julia, what has come over you lately!?

Struth, are you so p!$$ed out of your mind in celebration, that you have lost all sight of objectivity and reality!?

If you must know... and if you did your research before branding everyone who even asks or makes a critically objective comment, as a Labor supporter in a sneering way, you would notice atm I'm pretty much middle of the road. I've often stated why I prefer Turnbull to Abbott, because he's more moderate and of all the politicans around atm one of the best qualified moderates for future PM in my opinion is Barnaby Joyce. SEE THE BARNABY JOYCE FOR PM THREAD I STARTED!

So if you insist on branding in colours of political persuasion... at least get your colours right... GREEN for Nationals (traditionally nationals are a blend of the best of Lib, Labor and greens) with a tint of blue atm... but I'm not blindly faithful to any of them that I would defend their every move or try to shoot down anyone who has a legitimate concern.

You seem to have missed the main point of that post... about the LNP shooting themselves in the foot by disenfranchising moderate swinging voters if they don't get over Howard and their cult like persistent praise of him... or is that what you took exception too most. :rolleyes:
 
Just to illustrate my point of obsessive cult like worship of previous leaders, people (other than kiwis expats, maybe ;)) would remember the Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen era in Qld government (and similar in other states).

Putting aside the debate over his style and his contribution to Qld development... the fact is he eventually abused his political power and suffered the wrath of the voting public.

A dead wood hard core element of the Qld nationals kept praising the virtues of the philosophy and character of Joh Bjelke-Petersen for decades and suffered the persistent voter backlash, voted in for a change from Labor, then out of government promptly, until they were reduced to the minor partner of the coalition and significant periods in opposition.

They only won office in 2012 after a period of un-harmonious uniting the Nationals and Libs (LNP) and bringing in a fresh face (Can-Do Newman) with no connection or even referral to Joh Bjelke-Petersen in his repertoire.

The LNP has done a bit of a 'Joh Bjelke-Petersen' with Howard. If they don't learn from it you'd better make the most of it for one term (or less) cos they'll get yanked back into opposition by the voter public and well have to suffer more of the least worst, rather than good, stable, predictable government that soo many of us expect and deserve.
 
I don't see any particular fawning over Howard Whiskers.

For that, we have to go to Labor and their Whitlam idolatry.... and while Labor remain petulantly bitter 'n twisted over their electoral humiliation, I don't see a one term coalition gu'mint as likely. I think Short-one and Angryandsleezy are dreaming there.
 
The inescapable reality on asylum policy is that the policies of the Howard Government effectively stopped the boats and Labor stuffed it up big time.
 
drsmith said:
The inescapable reality on asylum policy is that the policies of the Howard Government effectively stopped the boats and Labor stuffed it up big time.
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You are still missing the point drsmith!

For a swinging voter especially, it's not the good that people remember most... it's the worst of one that leaves the most indelible imprint on peoples psyche... ie the free market and workchoices philosophy that came to the fore in his latter years.

That's why he was voted out, a lot of former supporters voted big time against him, because he lost their confidence with an extreme change in presented and agreeable policy.

Labor was voted out because of an unholy mix of un-agreeable policy AND uncertain leadership.
 
Work Choices (or similar) would only return to the front and centre of the electorate's minds if the current government's policy position changed to reintroduce it.
 
drsmith said:
Work Choices (or similar) would only return to the front and centre of the electorate's minds if the current government's policy position changed to reintroduce it.
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Aaah, so you concede that there is still an element that supports that policy in the government. Obviously, there are members who supported it before and a few of them who still hold it as ideological objective, despite publically stating 'the official party line'.

So, imagine you are an impartial swing voter and balancing the facts with perception (policy position) and occasional praises to a former idol, a conflicting ideological position... I know it might be a bit tough for loyalists, but give it a go. It's not much of a stretch to imagine a shift in power within the party or a bit of overconfidence to creep in and before you know it, someone has got an agenda to fulfil their suppressed ego... the voting public has got wind of it and the damage is done.
 
drsmith said:
A lot of taxpayer money has been wasted by governments pouring large sums of money into various private sector support schemes over the years. Home insulation and forestry are two classic example and solar panels I feel will ultimately be judged in the same light.

IIRC, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (I did mean Clean, not Green) was born as part of Labor's Alliance with the Greens for office after the 2010 election. The Greens would like to have seen an increase the guaranteed funding for the CEFC from $10 billion over five years to $30 billion over ten. Fortunately, only $225m was lent by the Corporation before the Labor Government went into caretaker mode.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Energy_Finance_Corporation

Lending for this sort of stuff is best left to the private sector.
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Sorry about the late reply Drsmith.

It sounds like your issue is how the policy come about rather than the policy itself. If you want to leave it to private sector then fair enough then how about we get on an even playing field and end coal subsides which would in return enable clean energy to compete in ROI. I do draw attention to the fact you have pointed out the rather green schemes as the waste of tax payer dollars while completely ignoring these subsides to the coal industry, car industry, Bluescope etc. This was actually a good green policy and 1 of few I might add.

On a separate matter I thought the coalition policy was to turn back the boats not turn back the media reporting on the boats. This early into their term and they're already treating the public with contempt. I don't expect this will be an open and transparent government but then again none ever are.
 
overhang said:
Sorry about the late reply Drsmith.

It sounds like your issue is how the policy come about rather than the policy itself. If you want to leave it to private sector then fair enough then how about we get on an even playing field and end coal subsides which would in return enable clean energy to compete in ROI. I do draw attention to the fact you have pointed out the rather green schemes as the waste of tax payer dollars while completely ignoring these subsides to the coal industry, car industry, Bluescope etc. This was actually a good green policy and 1 of few I might add.

On a separate matter I thought the coalition policy was to turn back the boats not turn back the media reporting on the boats. This early into their term and they're already treating the public with contempt. I don't expect this will be an open and transparent government but then again none ever are.
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One of the issues is the range of ways the governments (both state and federal) are supporting so-called Green technologies.

We have direct subsidies for householders such as those for solar panels. We also have a carbon tax and until recently we had the CEFC lending taxpayers money. Of the above we need to first decide which of the above is the best model. Over an above that, we also need to consider the overall benefit relative to the cost to our economy.

Just because I haven't mentioned subsidies to other industries doesn't mean I necessarily agree with them. On Green though, my view is that from the current complex mix of policies we should go back to the drawing board and abolishing the CEFC is at least a step in that direction as is getting rid of the carbon tax.
 
overhang said:
On a separate matter I thought the coalition policy was to turn back the boats not turn back the media reporting on the boats. This early into their term and they're already treating the public with contempt. I don't expect this will be an open and transparent government but then again none ever are.
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I forgot to address this point.

This has been discussed to some depth in the asylum seeker thread. The short answer is that there will be weekly briefings.
 
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