(apologies to claybro for not responding sooner)
claybro wrote:Aidan, I have here explained how a city, almost identical to Adelaide 40 years ago managed to drag itself into the modern era, even without massive mining royalties. All it took was a comprehensive plan, and a willingness to find funding.Yes Perth for a short while considered closing 1 line...but the new freeways were planned with wide medians to cater for rail lines, so any lines that where to be closed where to be replaced with new lines.A WA transport minister of the 80's even travelled to Adelaide when toying with the idea of OBahns in the middle of the freeways. They went away convinced that the buses would not have enough capacity to cope(smart in hindsight), and therefore the freeway train lines where developed.
AIUI the original freeways were built too narrow to meet demand, and had to be widened at considerable expense. And was building new lines down freeways actually government policy at the time a line was slated for closure?
And your response, typical of so many in Adelaide is..shouldnt, cant, wont, not needed yet..too expensive.. no money
Where money is limited, it should be spent in the way that does the most good. I make no apologies for opposing expensive grossly overengineered solutions, nor socially disruptive ones.
Please advise of your ideas for infastructure funding?
The first thing to do is bust the myth that (at national level) deficits are something that we, or future generations, will eventually have to pay off. They're not - most of the debt accrued is money that we owe ourselves. Interest paid on it goes into Reserve Bank profits, so the government recoups that too (actually the borrowing tends to be indirect which helps with bank liquidity, but the money does originate with the Reserve Bank). We should try to better calculate the true economic effects of infrastructure (comparing the immediate inflationary effects of spending money on it with the long term deflationary effects of having it available for use).
Unlike his other policies, Bob Katter's idea of a regional development bank is an extremely good one, as it would ensure money is available, and enable such spending to be somewhat depoliticized.
At the state level we need two things, abundant long term funding and cheap credit. The best way to get abundant funding is to phase in a broad based land tax extremely gradually (over several decades). This would avoid significantly disadvantaging anyone, but would have the great advantage of slowing the increase of land prices.
The best source of cheap credit should be the Reserve Bank itself, But if that remains off limits to the state government, and the regional development bank idea also falls flat, so we're forced to stick with the bond market, we should at least try to short circuit the incompetent ratings agencies which have encouraged state governments to pursue false economies. We would need to convince bondholders they're money's 100% safe. I think the best way to do that would be to announce what taxes would be raised, and what spending would be cut, in the hypothetical (practically impossible) situation that money suddenly becomes unavailable.
The Federal government has made it quite clear that unless the state is willing to find funds by either tolls or levys, they will withhold funding. If a state levy is unlawful...then change the law.
I'm all for a state levy, but it may not just be a matter of just changing the law. IIRC the stat's actions were found to be unconstitutional. So there either needs to be a change in the constitution (very difficult to achieve) or a cooperative arrangement with the Federal government to get round it (very difficult to sustain through changes of government). But if we can find a way to impose one,we should.
If the concern is accountability of funds, then set up a comittee to monitor the spending.
I'm pretty sure that wouldn't solve the problem. We need total transparency in the decision making process.
If tolls are unpopular, then build the infastructure by announcing the tollway at the time of construction so there is no hidden agenda. At present, we have no comprehensive plan good bad or otherwise to present to the Federal Government, or any willingness to find alternative direct streams of revenue to co- fund future transport infastructure.
Agreed.
