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Subject: Wed.21.7.21 daily digest

Roderick

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Wed.21.7.21 Metro Twitter
Aircraft: No ramp access to platforms until late 2021 (pedestrian-underpass works).
Flinders St: still with a lane closed for tunnel works.
Trains will not stop at Mooroolbark until late October 2021 (level-crossing works).
Buses replace trains on sections of the Ballarat & Geelong lines until Sunday 25 July. Buses are not stopping at Footscray and Sunshine. Passengers should catch a suburban train to Southern Cross. See https://bit.ly/36zd6wR
Buses replace trains Ringwood - Lilydale until 1.30 Sun 25 Jul (level-crossing works).
7.53 Lilydale/Belgrave line: Buses will replace trains Blackburn - Ringwood (an overhead power fault). Buses have been ordered, but may take over 60 minutes to arrive.  Consider alternatives.
- 8.18 Buses are replacing trains, adding 25 minutes.
- 9.46 Buses are replacing trains Blackburn - Upper Ferntree Gully (an overhead power fault), adding 45 minutes.
- 11.02 Trains resuming.  First trains: 10.47 ex Belgrave; 10.56 ex Flinders St.
15.24 Buses replace trains Frankston - Stony Point after an incident yesterday, adding 25 min. Trains are expected to resume by 6pm tonight.
- 17.45 Trains resume Frankston-Stony Point.  First trains: 18.04 ex Frankston; 19:38 ex Stony Point.  The 18.38 Frankston-Stony Point will be a bus.
18.45 Mernda/Hurstbridge lines: Major delays (an external power supply fault affecting signalling equipment near West Richmond). Trains may terminate/originate at intermediate stations.
- 20.18 Delays clearing.
Buses replace trains North Melbourne - Upfield from 20.35 until the last train (maintenance works).
Mernda/Hurstbridge lines: Buses replace trains Parliament - Clifton Hill from 20.50 until the last train (maintenance works). From Flinders St, Southern Cross and loop stations, take a city-circle replacement bus to Parliament.
Sunbury/Craigieburn/Upfield lines: All trains run direct to/from Flinders St from 21.00 until the last train (maintenance works).  From loop stations, take a train from pfm 2 to Southern Cross.
Lilydale/Belgrave lines: All trains will terminate/originate at Burnley from 21.00 until the last train (works).  From Southern Cross and loop stations, take a train to Flinders St, then a Glen Waverley train to Burnley.
Glen Waverley line: All trains will run direct to/from Flinders St from 21.00 until the last train (maintenance works).
Buses replace trains Mordialloc - Frankston from 21.00 until the last train (level-crossing works).

Cash boost for hard-hit businesses as Victorian lockdown drags on. Noel Towell, David Estcourt and Michael Fowler July 21, 2021. 45 comments
...
RELATED ARTICLE Narrow majority of voters wants lockdowns phased out as vaccination rate grows
RELATED ARTICLE New research hs found while lockdowns have some measurable health effects, they pale in comparison to the effects of letting Covid run rampant through the community. Researchers find lockdowns have adverse health effects - but far less than COVID
RELATED ARTICLE Soldiering on: Nicola Clement with Vernon on her Ariele building balcony. Confined to an apartment, but at least the dog is walked
<www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/victoria-records-22-new-local-coronavirus-cases-as-hard-border-to-nsw-enacted-20210721-p58bhm.html>

Car parks program shows country on a ‘corruption slippery slope’, Shane Wright and Katina Curtis, July 21, 2021. 181 comments
Governance experts fear Australia is sliding down the “slippery slope” of corruption, calling on the federal government to overhaul its planned integrity commission in the wake of an auditor-general report into a program funnelling hundreds of millions of dollars into Coalition-held seats.
Professor AJ Brown, leader of the Centre for Governance and Public Policy’s public integrity program and a board member of Transparency International Australia, said Prime Minister Scott Morrison could make a stand for better administration by toughening the proposed integrity commission.
The Croydon railway station in Melbourne is one of the car parks promised to be upgraded as part of the government’s program.CREDIT:PAUL JEFFERS
The Auditor-General earlier this year found the Commuter Car Park Fund, used in the run-up to the 2019 election to promise new car parks and upgrades near train stations at 47 sites, overwhelmingly delivered projects to Coalition seats.
In a Senate hearing this week, the Auditor-General’s office revealed a government-compiled list of the 20 most marginal seats ahead of the 2019 election formed the basis for the program, which so far has delivered just two completed car parks.
Professor Brown said the Auditor-General’s report had shown how taxpayers’ money was funnelled into a program aimed at maximising the government’s electoral chances.
He said the car park report, on top of the Auditor-General’s revelations about the so-called “sports rorts” program, showed the desperate need for a formal, federal anti-corruption authority.
“What we’re trying to do is not just stop corruption but to stop ourselves from sliding down the slippery slope towards corruption. But this isn’t just getting on to the slippery slope, we’re sliding down it fast,” he said.
Mr Morrison announced plans for a Commonwealth Integrity Commission in December 2018 but the plan stalled during 2019 and was not revived until December 2020, when the government released the draft bill and asked for views.
The government is yet to respond to the submissions and put the bill to Parliament.
Professor Brown said the government should give its integrity commission stronger powers to deal with cases of “soft” corruption.
“There is nothing to fear from greater transparency. The opportunity to show leadership has been laid at the feet of the Prime Minister and here’s his chance to grab it,” he said.
Former NSW Treasury secretary Percy Allan says there’s been an increase in the number of programs aimed at supporting governments.CREDIT:LOUISE KENNERLEY
Former secretary of the NSW Treasury, Percy Allan, said there was a growing number of programs being used by political parties to maximise their electoral chances.
He said at the federal level, the public service was under pressure not to press back against such programs while federal politicians wanted to be able to announce vote-winning projects.
“I think there’s a power shift going on towards the states, and that’s affecting the federal government which collects all the tax but the states get to spend it,” he said.
“There’s a focus from the federal government on wanting to announce things, to open things.”
While 47 projects were promised, several have had to be abandoned because of their cost or they were pledged in areas where available land is already planned for a local project. Just two car parks have been completed.
The chief executive officer of Parking Australia, Stuart Norman, said the government clearly needed help to complete some of the projects, noting some of them may never go ahead.
“We believe that these are needed but expertise is required to help roll these out and that expertise is lacking within the program partners and the Department of Infrastructure,” he said.
“Some of these may not be able to proceed for reasons out of [the federal government’s] control so is that funding going to be used for other sites of need?”
Current Urban Infrastructure Minister Paul Fletcher defended the program, telling the ABC the car parks were based on need with the government aiming to reduce congestion.
“The idea of community car parks is to get people to drive to a station and then get on the train to get to where they need to go, thus reducing congestion across the overall road network and use the rail more efficiently,” he said.
The Auditor-General found the projects picked for funding “reflected the geographic and political profile of those given the opportunity to identify candidates”.
It found the projects were nominated either by sitting Coalition MPs, Coalition duty senators for Labor-held seats or by endorsed Liberal candidates in the electorates of Mayo and Macnamara.
Shadow finance spokeswoman Katy Gallagher said the program was an “industrial scale” of rorting done with taxpayers’ money.
“This was a government fund, appropriated through the budget, passed through the Parliament, and then a decision was taken by the Prime Minister that no one other than the people on this top 20 marginal list would be able to access that money,” she said.
RELATED ARTICLE Former judges Stephen Charles and David Harper are signatories to a letter calling for an end to delays in establishing a federal anti-corruption watchdog. Nation has waited long enough for anti-corruption watchdog, former judges, politicians say
RELATED ARTICLE Ringwood railway station car park in the Melbourne seat of Deakin ... planning is still ongoing for an work on an upgrade that was promised at the 2019 election. Car parks targeted government list of marginal electorates, inquiry told
RELATED ARTICLE Ringwood railway station car park in suburban Mellbourne. One of the projects promised funding in 2019, still to be upgraded. When 47 car parks, $660 million and one election collide
<www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/car-parks-program-shows-country-on-a-corruption-slippery-slope-20210720-p58bbw.html>

Jul 21 2021 AstraZeneca vaccine and international travel: Will Europe and US allow Australians to enter? Michael Gebicki
<www.traveller.com.au/astrazeneca-vaccine-and-international-travel-will-europe-and-us-allow-australians-to-enter-h1xavq>

Jul 21 2021 Australia international border closures: The one question we all want answered. Ben Groundwater
<www.traveller.com.au/australia-international-border-closures-the-one-question-we-all-want-answered-h1xa95>

JULY 21 2021 Light rail construction: disruption taskforce on the job as Commonwealth Ave traffic to drop up to 80 per cent. Jasper Lindell
The construction phase of Canberra's second light rail stage is set to create a commuter headache, with traffic capacity on Commonwealth Avenue to drop by almost 80 per cent.
<www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7349547/commonwealth-ave-traffic-to-drop-drastically-during-light-rail-disruption>
* So why is this bit proceeding given Commonwealth Avenue Bridge is apparently off-limits to the toy train? Oh yes - got to keep the developers.
* My understanding is it runs down the centre of Adelaide Ave ? how do people get across the roads
* Also the express bus lanes, what's left of them, now go as well. Barr is certainly creating a situation where the tram will sound fabulous.
* Probably pedestrian bridges to the station(s) at Curtin and/or Deakin. Stations, which by the way, will be fed by the bus system, which will ensure a much increased commute time.
* Tracks and overhead wires are not required. Overseas "trams" have rubber wheels, are battery-powered with quick recharging done at various stops along a route, which has road markings and GPS to guide the vehicle. There is no need to waste $billions on installing outdated infrastructure.
* Interestingly - Labor were all against the use of "the last kilometre" of phone-lines in the FttN NBT and criticised those "copper phone lines" as being :outdated technology" - yet Labor is using train-tracks which are even older technology than copper phone lines. Clearly Labor maintains absolutely no standards in what it says or does - everything is dependent on the agenda item and no consistency between agenda-items should be expected - in other words they will say whatever it takes to get what they want and little things like "truth" are irrelevant.
* Especially under Barr. The man is oblivious to the obvious.
* The tram running on batteries from Commonwealth Park to past the Lodge as required by the NCA, increases the trip time by 50% at least.
* Is 80% a reality statement? Having recent visited Newcastle and driven alongside and with their tram (from the same company and running at times on a shared road), it is a massive disruptor of volume and speed zones. But again, the realists have been pointing the consequences out for years so they should not be a surprise.
*  $1,570 per centimetre for the next stage of the tram, well latest estimate anyway, which will provide a slower, less flexible service than what it replaces. Come on staffers! Let's see you defend this! So that is $3.6 billion so far, on 24 kilometres of tram, which is utilised by 6% of commuters. Wow. Imagine if say a third of that money had been spent on updating and expanding express bus lanes and buying an electic bus fleet? Imagine another third spent on the health system, including another major hospital in Gunghalin? Imagine the remaining third being spent on education or public housing? Imagine if the ACT didn't have pig-headed, ideologically driven, dumb politicians? $1570 per centimetre. Feeling good heavy lifters?
* Like the tram inevitably ends up at the end of its line, dead-end politicians are inevitably ending up at the end of their lines too. The only way there will be change is to replace the politicians that are creating the current problems.
* No hope Rob. Barr's core support demographic will support him no matter what fool of an idea he comes up with.
* Or perhaps override those politicians rather than replace them? John Coates, with his Commander's hat on, did something interesting when he directly challenged Annastasia Palaszczuk (of course it was characterised by Patricia "to a hammer everything is a nail" Karvelas as a gender issue, when it was actually a commandeering issue). As my old physics lecturer once said, there's more than one way to skin a cat.
* Why don’t pollies listen? First Anzac Hall, and now this monumental construction, both decried by a large majority as a ridiculous waste of money. Just get electric buses and spend difference of the homeless.
* Homeless could get jobs and pay for themselves but agree with the electric busses. It’s crazy expenditure that could have been spent on a state of the art Hospitals and Health system.
* Stop being so obvious. It hurts Barr's ears.
* Light rail works well for big populations and warm climates, but Canberra is neither of those things. It's a very big cost/expense for a relatively small population. The reality is that Canberra has a cold climate and the majority of people don't want to use public transport. It's not feasible and the money could be spent on so many more worthwhile things for the community (e.g. housing, hospitals, schools etc.).
* The Gold Coast light rail supports what you say. A population base of over 700,000 people, which in a non-covid environment, is swelled by 1.3 million tourists makes it viable. 6% of ACT commuters use public transport. So maybe 12,000 people? Good job Andy.
* With Chris Steel stepping in to save the day on traffic disruption is reassuring, has he gotten his P-plates yet?
* I still don't get why the next stage isn't running down constitution avenue to Russell and then the airport. Its clear a lot of people travel out that way for Gungahlin based on traffic jams. I know the southside would complain again, but i live on the southside and some people really need to spend more time commuting in and around Gungahlin to truly appreciate the roads we have in Tuggeranong.
* There is no chance to redevelop land on that route, so Barr isn't interested. Barr will gain more rate revenue when the Curtin horse paddocks are sold to developers of the 'diplomatic quarter'. Barr's only motivator is revenue.
* For some reason, Australian airports have traditionally been off-limits to public transport. It is a natural monopoly - just ask Graeme Samuel who compiled a report on just that. With their monopoly, the airport administrators can charge exorbitant prices for everything from ice-creams to parking. It's also a good earner for taxi-drivers.
* Don't know which part of Tuggeranong you come from, but down my end the roads, roundabouts and traffic lights are terrible in peak hour. 45 minutes by car to Civic or 90 minutes door to door by bus. I'm certainly not appreciating Tharwa Dr and Drakeford Dr. I'm guessing the light rail from Woden may even make my public transport journey slower.
* Please get the Woden line built asap. Looking at you, federal Liberals. Canberra has voted for it three elections in a row.
* Never have so many, paid so much, for so long, to benefit so few. Total waste of money and resources. A north side hospital would win a plebiscite in a canter.
* Feds have spent more money on stage 2 so far and committed plenty going forward so maybe start looking at the bureaucracy that stalls every type of development.
* $170 million out of an, at least, $3.6 billion cost. If that's plenty of money, we have vastly different opinions of what plenty means.
* I look forward to the usual suspects complaining. In advance: yes it’s expensive, but so are roads and no-one ever complains here about the cost of those. Yes hospitals and schools need funding, but more is spent on the road network every year than the light rail so look at that. No autonomous cars and electric cars won’t solve the problem — they take up just as much room as regular cars. No fixed tracks aren’t a problem — they create the incentive for investment, and it’s not as though the Civic to Woden route is going away (and there’s a huge freeway there too, which is never criticised for being fixed). Yes the bridge is a challenge, but I vote for reducing it to two lanes each way, which it is in places anyway. No a third bridge via the Museum isn’t an option — public transport needs to be direct. See: every Canberra bus route. Send the cars that way if you like. The need for extra lanes is because of the clover leaf intersections, which should go as part of this project. Oh, and if you think busses are a realistic alternative to the light rail I doubt you’ve ridden either recently. I have, and the smooth and efficient light rail is light years ahead of bouncy uncomfortable busses.
* 6% of Canberrans use public transport. This government is hoping that reaches 9%. So 91% of Canberrans rely on private/shared transport which requires roads. Private vehicles are more flexible, run when you need them to and are indispensable for a family. Ever do a grocery shop for two adults and three kids and then lug it all home on the tram? There are a myriad of other examples which is why roads will always be a priority over public transport. A northside hospital would be a far better spend.
* Of course there are things that are easier with a car, but this is part of the point — if there are diverse travel options, people who *need* to use a car will have more space, because the huge number of people who sitting alone in a car on major roads on their way to major employment centres can use public transport. The way it is now doesn’t need to be the way it is forever. As the city grows, anything like the current level of car use simply isn’t going to work. We can’t keep building more car parks and widening freeways. There’s no reason shopping by public transport (or — gasp — walking/bike) should be impossible if we make the right decisions about how our city is built. Not for everyone, maybe not for you, but for enough people that all forms of transport work better.
* Agree totally. An expanded express bus lane system and an electric bus fleet would meet what you've outlined for probably a tenth of the cost. A grocery shop for a family of 5 on a treadlie. I would love to see that!
* How does "fixed tracks" "create the incentive for investment"? The public transport will still run whether on "fixed tracks" or "roads" and so "investment" will be dependent totally on other stuff. The problem with "fixed tracks" is that when something goes wrong (e.g. a traffic accident) they are ...... "fixed tracks" ....... and the toy train can't get around the problem. "fixed tracks" also result in the repeated "clunking sound" - something that was supposedly not going to happen with Stage 1 - yet there it is - still happening.
* Around the time when the tram first started running, I was in Civic and saw a carriageful of what looked like vagabond Bohemians piling out of it, all dressed up in fancy colourful clothing, but whose behaviour was a subtle as a brick. They were loud, discourteous and bordering on reckless. One woman, who was trailing behind and showing off to her friends, said "Hey look at this" as she swung her hefty leg as hard as she could at a takeaway softdrink bottle on the ground. Problem is she completely hooked it and just missed me as I was minding my own business standing at right-angles to the direction she was walking in. Completely boorish, uncouth and straight out of Charles Dickens novel. Now that's not to say anything about the functioning of the tram, but what's the point of it if that's what it's attracting?

22 new local Covid cases; Melbourne to mark six-month lockdown milestone.
Mitch Clarke, Mitch Ryan July 21, 2021. 1136 comments
Victoria has recorded 22 new cases — its highest spike in Covid cases since September — while one airline has suspended flights across its network.
FLIGHTS GROUNDED...
BREAKDOWN OF THE LATEST CASES...
‘HIGH SUSPICION’ OF OUTDOOR TRANSMISSION...
LOCKDOWN MILESTONE LOOMS...
BARWON HEADS MAN IN ICU WITH COVID...
‘WORST YET TO COME’ FOR RETAIL, SMALL BUSINESS
‘WE CAN’T LEAVE IT SMOULDERING’...
DISASTER PAYMENTS ON THE WAY...
<www.heraldsun.com.au/coronavirus/why-melbourne-has-spent-six-months-in-lockdown/news-story/79cae98595aeed5c75151cd521afa90b>

Wed.21.7.21 Melbourne 'Herald Sun' letters:
* THE latest addition to our anthology of localised limericks.  [the fourth line has seven syllables; try just 'The city was busy']
He was a young man from Coleraine,
Who went to Melbourne by train,
The city was so busy,
It made him quite dizzy,
So he will never do that again.