Re: Re: More SMH letters, and the only one supporting Andrew Constance is from - Andrew Constance
  Tony Galloway

I’m not doubting that they’ve spent money on things - $40 billion+ pissed away on Westconnex and associated works for a start, and there’s more to come there.

With the massive gold plating and overengineering on CSELR they could have built 5 times the length of LR they’re getting now, and in a way that wouldn’t have pissed off people and poisoned the well for it in the future. When even a good thing is done in a way that can turn it into a bad thing, and at vastly inflated cost (LR opponents have been vocal, supporters quiet, because it’s very difficult to defend what’s being done) it reveals sheer incompetence and lack of due diligence which is ultimately the minister’s responsibility. And further money will have to be spent in the future to fix the mistakes being built into it now.

But that’s the least of the problems. I remain resolutely opposed to this bogus metro scam because, whatever its purported technical merits (which I think are overstated, for reasons I’ve posted previously) it is being used by this government as a way to impose grossly unsustainable overdevelopment that will displace existing residents and blight areas into the future. Here’s the agenda, stated baldly by one of the chief perpetrators :

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/triguboff-lets-trade-trees-for-homes/2006/10/10/1160246131958.html http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/triguboff-lets-trade-trees-for-homes/2006/10/10/1160246131958.html

The metro is the weapon they use to inflict this totally unsustainable Triguboff/UGNSW bullshit agenda onto areas where there is no political blowback for them, as it’s the quid pro quo for all the filthy corrupt developer money that Arthur See-no-donors had “no recall” of at ICAC - the “I Claim Amnesia Commission”. How convenient it was nobbled for him, eh ?

Their solution for their own cash bloated voters is a seamless, highly tolled (discourages the riff-raff) motorway that passes under the homes of their political enemies - those homes not forcibly extorted and destroyed, anyway - while pumping their unfiltered exhaust fumes into the air their opponents breathe.

The point is, their con job is now exposed - toll roads and low density suburbia for those who can afford these luxuries, sardine-can-in-a-sewer public transport, with housing to match, for those that can’t. I won’t defend the labor party, as their record speaks for itself, but the blatant and shamelessly corrupt agenda pursued by this government, entirely aimed at sluicing public assets into the corporate coffers, and enabling a totally overinflated property speculator Ponzi scheme fuelled with dodgy foreign money, high personal debt, risible capital gains tax rates coupled to negative gearing - that’s all the work of the coalition, state and federal.

You may worship at the altar of metro all you like, but to me in its political and demographic context in Sydney it’s only another union busting, job destroying, overengineered gadgetbahn being used as a weapon by political sock puppets following instructions from their owner-operators - nothing else. Everything else they’ve done has also put local, well paid jobs last when it comes to procurement as well.

As for “three tramways” - the one being built is a monument to incompetence, corporate rorting and concrete, the other two are still only lines on maps - truncated lines.

With the current state of political flux in NSW there’s a good chance the next state government wont have a major party majority, which would give minor parties and community independents the chance to apply the blow torch to a minority labor government that is anxious to shed any reminders of Obeid, Macdonald and Tripodi. The labor party might be forced to change its ways, not because it wants to but because it has to, as Kenneally found out when she signed off on the IWLR extension.

This government has done damage that will last for decades, driven by greed, ignorance, stupidity and blind, malignant ideology, and they’re keen to do more damage before being kicked out. Just getting these sociopaths stopped is a good start - what happens after that, we shall see.

Tony G

> On 19 Aug 2017, at 11:43 am,prescottt@... [TramsDownUnder] TramsDownUnder@...> wrote:

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> I'm far from overjoyed with the present mob and least of all Constance, but looked at dispassionately, they've done more PT investment than anybody since the Wran government back in the 70s and 80s. Either completed, underway or coming up are: a new regional and long distance fleet, more double deck trains (yes I'd prefer if they were all built locally), a major new metro system, three new tram projects and investment in regional and long distance commuter bus services. The reintroduction of tram in Sydney has been entirely down to Liberal governments as Labor has consistently opposed it. Unfortunately they also build too many motorways but Labor does that too - that's an Australian ritual like the barbeque.

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> The letters quoted continue to show that people either completely fail to understand the facts about operational privatisation or wilfully distort discussion by spreading false information. Constance makes things worse by saying that it's directed at the unions when the actual reason is better service delivery than government operator-agencies consistently fail to provide. He should be providing the reasoned arguments for that, not making cheap shots. But there are few statesmen in politics nowadays.

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> Tony P

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