Transport and Infrastructure Articles

One significant change Malcolm Turnbull has introduced is the creation of a mini-department for Cities. This is in spite of the Commonwealth having few city specific taxation and regulatory responsibilities. The original ministerial choice, Jamie Briggs, has yet to be replaced after being sacked for unwanted familiarity with a female public servant in a Hong Kong bar.

Catallaxy Files articles are archived at the National Library Australia.

The Premier, Denis Napthine, has committed to building an airport-to-city rail link. While opposition to this has featured pollution and flyovers, the key issue is the costs and the benefits. These are to be revealed by Victorian Treasurer Michael O'Brien in next Tuesday's state Budget. Meanwhile, Dr Napthine is in Canberra today where, aside from promoting a tax on single-use bottles, he is seeking support for infrastructure funding, especially on transport facilities. 

Transport arteries define how efficiently goods and people move in major cities. Rail was critical to the growth of great cities like Melbourne, but fixed tracks can only offer service for hub and spoke travel patterns. Roads offer greater transport flexibility and now play the key role in cities as job and income providers.

A leaked version of Melbourne's latest draft transport plan placed its focus on "congestion-busting". One suggestion was to reduce congestion by building fewer roads. Another was to discourage drivers from shopping trips during the day by reducing speed limits. The apparent strategy is to make road use sufficiently unattractive so that people will give up using their cars and wander over or cycle to the local shops and "activity centres".

This week saw encouraging figures on the Australian economy. Australia's June-quarter gross domestic product figures suggest national production in 2009 will be similar to last year, though lower export prices mean reduced earnings. No other developed country has fared so well. For 2009, European GDP will fall by more than 4 per cent, the US slightly less, while Japan is down 6.4 per cent.

Treasurer Wayne Swan has added his own voice in support of a High Court decision requiring BHP Billiton to provide rival iron ore miner Fortescue Metals Group with access to its Pilbara rail lines. This is contrary to the position the Australian Labor Party took to the last election and constitutes a staging post in a 15-year march through private property rights.

The report of Sir Rod Eddington into Melbourne's transport needs has opened up all the predictable responses from pressure groups favouring public transport modes and from cranks who loathe the Australian "love affair with the car".

Five judges have ruled on two disputes about access to the Pilbara iron ore railways. These judgements have resulted in four conflicting decisions. None of these adequately provides investors confidence to develop new infrastructure without fear of it being controlled by regulators.

The Bracks Government has adopted some strong pro-public transport and anti-car stances. One irksome illustration of this is the increased use of the motorist as a cash cow. Increased parking imposts and the new 40km/h speed limits are examples of revenue raising trumping traffic management.

Throughout the world buses, trains and trams are seeing declines in usage. In the United States they now account for only 1 per cent of the transport market. Public transport is fast approaching similar unimportance in Australia. In Melbourne over the past half century, public transport as a share of passenger trips has fallen from 57 per cent to 7 per cent.

Brian Buckley (The Age, Business, 7/6) chooses to misunderstand my points on transport. He claimed 55 per cent of New Yorkers were regular transit system users. The overall public transport share in the New York conurbation of some 13 million people is 9.6 per cent. For journeys to work it is 29 per cent. This share is much higher (55 per cent) if New York is defined as the city itself.

Last week the Government issued its 20-year transport strategy. There were two gorgeous documents full of vacuous words and phrases such as "liveability", "world class", and "encouraging people to make more sustainable travel decisions". There were lots of press releases, with opinion pieces by Premier Steve Bracks and Transport Minister Peter Batchelor.

We should not be blinded by the euphoria over public transport's success in servicing the Commonwealth Games. Public transport can work well when lots of people are converging on a common destination and can operate smoothly (if at a cost) if it vastly increases its staffing. Even before the Games started, there were claims of an imminent resurgence of (presumably commercially viable) light rail and suggestions that it is car users not public transport users who are subsidised.

In the budget, Treasurer Peter Costello wisely turned a deaf ear to the cacophony of voices calling for a massive new infrastructure spending program. Spearheading these appeals, the Business Council of Australia launched an infrastructure plan for future prosperity, calling for a national reform agenda accompanied by a new secretariat and other administrative machinery. 

Terry Dwyer (Letters, 1 July) claims that gas pipelines cannot compete with each other and that 'eminent economists' favour building infrastructure and then setting prices for its use that don't fully cover costs. Pipelines do of course compete with each other. The Australian Competition Tribunal recognised this when it found there was no case for regulating the Longford to Sydney pipeline that competes with that from Moomba.

Terry Dwyer (Letters, 1 July) claims that gas pipelines cannot compete with each other and that 'eminent economists' favour building infrastructure and then setting prices for its use that don't fully cover costs. Pipelines do of course compete with each other. The Australian Competition Tribunal recognised this when it found there was no case for regulating the Longford to Sydney pipeline that competes with that from Moomba.

Public transport is seldom analysed with the same detachment seen with other service industries. Its shortcomings have a high public profile and capacity for disruption of ever day activities. Thus it was in Victoria where union militancy in the industry convinced the Kennett Government to include it within its privatisation agenda.

A conference in Melbourne this week addressed the issue of 'public private partnerships' in infrastructure: roads, schools, hospitals, rail facilities etc. These partnerships are designed to maintain some of the impetus of privatisation. Since the early 1990s over $90 billion of Australian publicly owned entities have been sold into the private sector. Victoria was responsible for a third, mainly comprising the gas and electricity sales.

The Premier's 'historic boost to revive Victoria's rail network' pushes the State back into the wasteful Government spending era. Mr Bracks' ability to spend big on upgrading rail lines to Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong and Traralgon is due to the windfall inherited from the previous Government. The Treasury has coffers full of taxpayers money seeking the flimsiest of excuses to be spent.

No critic can deny the Bracks Government strong marks in its first 200 days. It has hastened slowly on the issues like the Snowy water while making sympathetic noises. It has offered no comfort to the Save Albert park wowsers. Above all, it has brought down a budget worthy of the State's best ever Treasurer, Alan Stockdale.