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..
I'm not defending it, just acknowledging it as part of our political process.The issue is we can no longer afford pork barrelling.
Labor wasting taxpayers money on them when they didn't have to.The climate change commission has apparently (according to abc) defied the gov shut down and decided to continue to operate on a voluntary basis.
Labor wasting taxpayers money on them when they didn't have to.
That'd be right.
+1. Flannery and co can do what they like if we're not paying for it any more.Labor wasting taxpayers money on them when they didn't have to.
That'd be right.
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.
+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...
I don't see any particular fawning over Howard Whiskers.
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.
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.
No. I didn't.Aaah, so you concede that there is still an element that supports that policy in the government.
No. I didn't.
I was commenting on the public perspective.
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.
One of the issues is the range of ways the governments (both state and federal) are supporting so-called Green technologies.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.
I forgot to address this point.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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