The Federal Politics Thread

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Dog · #121 Post by **Dog** » Mon Aug 26, 2013 5:04 pm

Dazzeland · #122 Post by **Dazzeland** » Mon Aug 26, 2013 7:47 pm

Dog wrote:Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane, high speed train would cost less than Abbott's parental leave scheme. It's a no brainier for me, invest in Australian infrastructure not middle class welfare !

Why is there no plans for it to be linked to Adelaide? It has a bigger population than Canberra..

I wonder if there is any plans for it to be eventually linked to Adelaide?

Nathan · #123 Post by **Nathan** » Mon Aug 26, 2013 7:55 pm

Dazzeland wrote:Why is there no plans for it to be linked to Adelaide? It has a bigger population than Canberra..

I wonder if there is any plans for it to be eventually linked to Adelaide?

Canberra is, by design, on the way from Sydney to Melbourne. It's also the capital. It would be flat out insane to not link it.

Continuing the line from Melbourne through Geelong, Mount Gambier then Adelaide would be nice for sure — but given how much of struggle it is to make a business case for Sydney > Melbourne when it's one of the busiest flight routes in the world, it would be some time before an Adelaide connection would be something to consider. (Although it would make sense to have some rough long term plans, and earmark a preferred corridor.)

[Shuz] · #124 Post by **[Shuz]** » Mon Aug 26, 2013 8:10 pm

Pretty sure the ADL > MEL flight corridor is up there in the top 20 or 30 busiest.

Dog · #125 Post by **Dog** » Mon Aug 26, 2013 8:10 pm

Aidan · #126 Post by **Aidan** » Mon Aug 26, 2013 10:14 pm

Nathan wrote:
Dazzeland wrote:Why is there no plans for it to be linked to Adelaide? It has a bigger population than Canberra..

I wonder if there is any plans for it to be eventually linked to Adelaide?
Canberra is, by design, on the way from Sydney to Melbourne. It's also the capital. It would be flat out insane to not link it.

Continuing the line from Melbourne through Geelong, Mount Gambier then Adelaide would be nice for sure — but given how much of struggle it is to make a business case for Sydney > Melbourne when it's one of the busiest flight routes in the world, it would be some time before an Adelaide connection would be something to consider. (Although it would make sense to have some rough long term plans, and earmark a preferred corridor.)

Business cases are highly dependent on interest rates. If we could get a bipartisan policy of permanently low interest rates, that would help. But the best situation of all would be to look at the true economic effects: balancing the inflationary impact of building it with the deflationary impact of having it - we'd then see that the case for nation building infrastructure is much stronger than most people currently assume.

Geelong and Mount Gambier are too much of a detour and the former is less than an hour from Melbourne anyway. Much better for the Adelaide line to diverge from the Sydney line at Melbourne Airport station and then run via Ballarat and Horsham. The expensive part is the final run into Adelaide - it will probably have to be in tunnel all the way from somewhere around Kanmantoo.

Aidan · #127 Post by **Aidan** » Mon Aug 26, 2013 10:25 pm

[Shuz] wrote:Pretty sure the ADL > MEL flight corridor is up there in the top 20 or 30 busiest.

50th busiest (by seat capacity) according to Wikipedia.

Dog · #128 Post by **Dog** » Mon Aug 26, 2013 10:32 pm

Nathan · #129 Post by **Nathan** » Mon Aug 26, 2013 10:57 pm

Aidan wrote:Geelong and Mount Gambier are too much of a detour and the former is less than an hour from Melbourne anyway. Much better for the Adelaide line to diverge from the Sydney line at Melbourne Airport station and then run via Ballarat and Horsham. The expensive part is the final run into Adelaide - it will probably have to be in tunnel all the way from somewhere around Kanmantoo.

Even though Geelong is less than an hour away, doesn't mean it wouldn't benefit from a high-speed connection. It's still the second biggest city in Victoria. Too me it makes far more sense for the line to run through Melbourne and continue on to Adelaide, rather than run what would effectively be two separate lines that both terminate in Melbourne.

And why would it have a stop at Melbourne airport? The only people I could see transferring would be from international flights. As a general airport/city connection it would be utter overkill.

#130 Post by **Norman** » Mon Aug 26, 2013 11:19 pm

They have a HSR stop at many airports all over Europe, such as Frankfurt and Stuttgart, so why not here? People can then connect to Ballarat and other intermediate stops.

Ho Really · #131 Post by **Ho Really** » Mon Aug 26, 2013 11:28 pm

Dog wrote:
[...]

Come on how can this welfare for rich mums be good economic management! It's just a cost to every one with no return to the economy, even paid child care would be a better option, at least it helps people to work and be productive, this is just paying people not to work! This is exactly the same crazy popular middle class welfare that prevented Howard from achieving the three AAA ratings.

(just to add) Actually just been reading it would be about $100bn to put a man on the moon from scratch, so for the cost of the Abbott Liberal PPL scheme Australia could land a man on the moon in 18 years! I recon that would even have to be better value!

Dog, why do you keep babbling on about the PPL? And why do you say there's no return to the economy? That money will be invested or spent and will contribute to GST and other taxes. So it's not NO RETURN. Don't exagerate.

As for the money being better spent on a fast train, that's up for debate. I would rather see Rudd (and all our politicians) think about transport infrastructure within our cities first (and that to our airports) than on something that may be a waste of time and used to score cheap points just before an election.

Cheers

Aidan · #132 Post by **Aidan** » Mon Aug 26, 2013 11:47 pm

Nathan wrote:
Aidan wrote:Geelong and Mount Gambier are too much of a detour and the former is less than an hour from Melbourne anyway. Much better for the Adelaide line to diverge from the Sydney line at Melbourne Airport station and then run via Ballarat and Horsham. The expensive part is the final run into Adelaide - it will probably have to be in tunnel all the way from somewhere around Kanmantoo.
Even though Geelong is less than an hour away, doesn't mean it wouldn't benefit from a high-speed connection. It's still the second biggest city in Victoria.

Of course it would benefit, but the third biggest city in Victoria (Ballarat) would benefit a lot more.

Too me it makes far more sense for the line to run through Melbourne and continue on to Adelaide, rather than run what would effectively be two separate lines that both terminate in Melbourne.

It may well do until you realise that unless the terminus is moved from Southern Cross (Spencer St) to somewhere distantly inferior, it would require some pretty deep tunnelling to get it under the Yarra, and then some relatively tight curves as well. Unless of course they opt for the route via Cooma, Gippsland and Dandenong - which would have its advantages including making the Latrobe Valley economy less dependent on coal, but would be more expensive and slower to construct, as well as being more technically challenging than the inland route.

And why would it have a stop at Melbourne airport? The only people I could see transferring would be from international flights. As a general airport/city connection it would be utter overkill.

While the international transfer market would be substantial, I would expect it to be used a lot by people from stations in country areas transferring to domestic flights. Plus it would be a very useful connection point from Melbourne's northern suburbs. And as a general airport/city connection it would be a brilliant way of attracting passengers onto rail to get to Sydney. Also it would eliminate the need to construct a separate railway to Melbourne Airport.

Dog · #133 Post by **Dog** » Tue Aug 27, 2013 12:06 am

rev · #134 Post by **rev** » Tue Aug 27, 2013 5:17 pm

Dog, the Labor version of Stumpjumper

High speed rail connecting Adelaide to east coast cities? There's probably a bigger chance of Perth getting a high speed rail connection to the east coast first.

And Dog, even though the Liberals plan an inferior NBN to the one Labor is rolling out, eventually the bits the Liberal plan misses out will be upgraded to fiber.
One way or another, we will get a fiber network in Australia. It's just of sooner or later, depending on who wins.

#135 Post by **monotonehell** » Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:46 pm

rev wrote:...even though the Liberals plan an inferior NBN to the one Labor is rolling out, eventually the bits the Liberal plan misses out will be upgraded to fiber.
One way or another, we will get a fiber network in Australia. It's just of sooner or later, depending on who wins.

Actually, most Australians probably wont under Liberals. If they manage to negotiate the missing pieces with Telstra, they'll roll out the backbone and nodes (at a cost very close to the current plan). Then they will leave it to the market as Howard did with telecommunications. This is the ideology that lead to the current mess of a telephone system we have now. Again we will see only those who live in areas where players think they can make a buck receiving a service. The NBN itself will be abandoned and the assets sold off to whoever wants them. And after spending all that money we will still be exactly where we are now, plus a few idle cabinets on the streets using power.

I'm not a Labor voter, they have many policies I don't agree with, but I can see the problems with the Lib's scam of a scheme as compared to the Lab's fleshed-out plan.