I think if the states involved can build it without robbing West Australia , they should go ahead and do it.

But we know they could never pay for it without robbing WA

The rail link will supposedly take pressure off the airports and planes. It will also be australian for a lil while unlike the aircraft. Hopefully it wont require all the crap security planes do either (wth have local planes got rediculous security anyway?).

SOB

Sydney's Chinese community is reaching critical mass, with Spot-the-Aussie becoming increasingly difficult in the Rush Hour crowds.

With Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane beginning to resemble an overseas province of the Chinese government, it won't be long before China agrees to build and operate a bullet train up and down the eastern seaboard at the request of our Chinese business fraternity.

"Closer ties with China" has been the catch-cry of our Labour governments since Irishman Paul Keating was taken to lunch by them and made to feel very special.

The Mao Express should be up and running before 2020 ~ no risk.

If you want 'ACTION' ~ you call in Outsiders to do the job.

If you want 'PROCRASTINATION' and political point-scoring to delay a job for decades ~ then you leave our public projects to our own politicians and engineers.

One day the people of this nation will wake up to the fact that we've been voting for 'C'-grade, intellectually impoverished politicians entrusted with the task of being guardians to the current and future welfare of Australia.

The mob in Canberra ~ on both sides of the House ~ are truly a pathetic bunch of low-grade individuals who are more suited to running a sports club than a nation.

no doubt this is so... 

  But getting back to Australian rail...we are incapable of efficiently running our current interstate rail system... have you travelled by rail interstate lately.??

The idea we'd be able to run a high-speed rail system is laughable.
Sadly.

George history has not shown that to be the case in the past.

hi GH   

I have used interstate rail services as an alternative to driving, and flying. I no longer have the requirement to do so... and am I glad???  yes indeed. 

All three forms of travel are problematic.

BUT WOW.. how far have we come in a hundred yrs..?  sadly we still use the basic technology of a hundred yrs ago.

and your preposition 

Austerity = recession and decline = increased debt... 

I'd agree with that. 

........just build it one way it'd be half the cost....

This proposal will fail for many basic reasons.

The first is 'Capex' - 'Capital Expenditure'.

The second is projected sales - BUMS ON SEATS!

The third is competition.  The airlines will undercut it and send it broke.

Etc.


'Expert costings' on major projects, particularly government financed projects, are notoriously unreliable and underestimated.

If they say $114 billion,  you can bet your socks it will be $140 billion, but let us accept the $114 billion for now.

That money has to come from available funds or borrowed at interest.

Say 5%,  which is a lot less that commercial finance today, which is nearer 8%.  That means an interest bill of $5.6 Billion, give or take a dollar.

Let us put aside the very idea of a profit return in that investment,  and say that we have to generate an after-tax profit of $4 to $5 billion.

The Jetstar trip from  Brisbane to Melbourne can be done for about $80 a seat,  and from Sydney to Melbourne for maybe $65 a seat.  Most of those seats are sold,  and the SYD to MEL is the 6th busiest in the world.

Our 4 airlines will NEVER allow that business to be taken off them, they will start a price war that will cripple the HSR in short order.  All the other routes will cross subsidize the east coast routes.

To generate that $5 billion,  the rail line will have to sell MILLIONS of tickets at a PROFIT of say $10 each to pay the interest.  That is FIVE HUNDRED MILLION rail tickets a year!!!!

With  a city of say 5 million at each end,  they are doomed to failure.



OC

I know!

We could always make it a government project like the NBN, a bottomless pit to throw OZ$114 Billion PLUS,  over lord knows how many years.

Taxpayer funded of course,  and we can always take the money out of the defence , hospitals and infrastructure budgets.

Or borrow it,  at 4% forever.

And if it loses money,  which it most certainly will - BUCKETS of it - then we can borrow that too.

OC

fractalign wrote on May 4^th, 2014 at 5:10pm:


OK then.  You're a dreamer.....

Lord Herbert wrote on Apr 11^th, 2013 at 11:43am:

Those dang unions keeping people alive..