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This is what happens when I manage to shoot some simple video on the bike and then edit it to death in AVS Video Editor. It’s a Felt F75, it’s me, I’m fat and slow and way past my prime but there you go. All visuals and audio by me, sound produced and mixed in Mixcraft.
Why bother with a report when you are going to pander only to those who have expressed their (apparently baseless) opinion anyway? Well to this state government it’s presumably about votes, not safety. They have already turned off speed cameras, even though a report said they were working as a deterrent. (And yes, some were working better than others, but why cull so many?)
And in this latest case NSW has the best and fairest system yet they want to make changes anyway; presumably to win over those who “complained”.
What I really like – or loathe, really – is a minister excusing their poor judgement by saying that “we want to ensure motorists can focus on the road“. Right! So road signs – designed to advise an appropriate speed for those who lack such judgement and powers of observation for themselves – are not part of the road. As drivers we shouldn’t be looking at signs, we should be focused on the road ahead, instead. So presumably whatever signs are left after this should be ignored on safety grounds. Yeah, right. But that’s the logical conclusion to this!
And as for pedestrians or cyclists, well they only become of interest when they are on the road itself and what they may be doing on the verge – or what they may do next – is irrelevant. Apparently. What a thinker this minister is! Don’t believe me? Read the SMH report:
THE NSW government should retain 70km/h and 90km/h speed zones and there is no justification motorists have a more confusing speed system than other states, a report reveals.
A report for Transport NSW by consultancy group ARRB has concluded ”70km/h and 90km/h speed limits should be retained as viable speed limit options for use on the NSW road network”.
But, despite the findings of his own report, the Roads Minister, Duncan Gay, confirmed last week that a review of NSW speed zoning guidelines had determined that 70km/h and 90km/h zones would be ”restricted”.
”Motorists have complained there are too many confusing speed signs and we have listened to their concerns,” he said. ”We want to ensure motorists can focus on the road when driving instead of constantly looking at changing speed signs.”
Bizarre. So let’s spend money fixing a problem that doesn’t exist. No surprise really.
Well he promised us the axe and here it is… but it won’t stop here, either. This cut is obvious enough – forestry researchers are hardly visible to most voters – and O’Farrell will keep to that tactic of hidden public service job losses. Look out also for sleight-of-hand, where the state government will offer sensible reform (perhaps, say, greater autonomy for school principals) as a bait but on the other hand conveniently “forget” to transfer enough admin staff to go with the reform (thus centralised admin jobs are removed but fewer new local admin jobs created). Whilst a trimmed-down state bureaucracy sounds good and many of the retrenched workers will find alternative jobs it hardly builds confidence, nor does it promote long-term sustainability or productivity in the areas affected. In the long-term it simply hurts the community.
Nor does it cost nothing as the state budget takes a redundancy hit before any savings kick in. And overall whilst it may balance out over a few years we’ll still see a dampening of economic performance in NSW: which would be counter to another promise, of course. Unless O’Farrell has a rabbit in his hat.
THE Barry O’Farrell government has embarked on its first round of public-service job cuts, announcing it will slash the number of positions at a research facility within the Department of Primary Industries by more than a third.
Staff at the Forest Science Centre, which is associated with Forests NSW, were told yesterday that 11 of their 31 positions would be abolished.
I know he’s just an amiable stooge for Tony Abbott in this anti-Carbon Tax malarkey (and I mean that in the nicest way) but surely even he can see that ‘proving’ that the coal industry in NSW will only grow by 60% of what it would have done without a tax isn’t very helpful to the anti-action denialist cause?
Firstly it’s still growing, but its predicted growth is simply reduced by 40% (yes, that’s loaded with assumptions and a timescale, too, so a large grain of salt is needed). Whereas if you take Tony Abbott at his word he expects the coal industry will be killed off completely. Now to my mind when something’s dead it ain’t growing at all. Whereas this coal mining beast is apparently still alive and kicking! And secondly, given that we will still consume energy and by all expectations grow in population to boot, it proves the tax works. Yes, coal declines and (here’s the flipside) resources are successfully diverted to the renewables sector. I thought Tony said it did nothing at all except create a money-go-round? How can Barry contradict Tony like this!
And I note that jobs created in the renewables sector aren’t mentioned at all. Bravo to the SMH for asking the question. There must be some jobs created to meet the gap created…. surely?
The NSW government did not respond to the Herald’s questions about why the Treasury modelling appeared not to include potential jobs gained through the development of renewable technology.
Note also that “confidential” seemingly doesn’t have the meaning it once had:
The confidential cabinet document shows the federal tax will result in the loss of 1850 jobs in the Hunter region and 7000 fewer jobs would be created in the Illawarra. The central west would lose 1000 jobs.
Compare and contrast the Herald’s more balanced reporting with the Terrorgraph’s slanted, opinion-laden and more colourfully-worded “report“:
THE carbon tax will inflate electricity prices by up to $200 a year more than Julia Gillard promised, demolishing claims her compensation package would ensure most people were hardly affected.
A NSW Treasury review into the carbon tax ordered by Premier Barry O’Farrell found electricity prices would go up by 15 per cent – not the 10 per cent predicted by the Prime Minister. That would mean an increase in a high-usage household of $498 a year, $300 for a medium-usage household and $183 for a low-usage household.
The Terrorgraph even manages to throw some mud at the French as well! Perhaps ‘proving’ that Gillard favours the French and the Victorians over the poor old New South Welsh-men and women? Or do we simply have cleaner, blacker coal and must therefore pay the price for our foolishness?
The report found that while the French government would receive $800 million in compensation as the owner of a power station in Victoria, no NSW power generator would be compensated.
Rumblings? Concerns? Should we be surprised? Nah. The O’Farrell opposition promised us that in government they would sort the infrastructure mess out whilst simultaneously getting rid of the backroom deals betwen mates and fixing the shonky state of finances. And we all know that’s code for replacing one set of mates and deals with another somehow more transparent set, going forward. It’s always going forward, never backward in this game. And no matter how transparent the process it’s always going to be as much about who you know as what you know. That’s called business connections and networking. Going forward, of course.
Sidenote: the higher-quality yet leaner SMH crew managed to turn a simple plural into possessive case as well, as in “the submission’s” below. Can’t help myself, can I?
”Paint the picture, get the five-year plans, lock them into forward estimates, view the submission’s coming forward and make sure they are delivered efficiently,” Mr Broad said of Infrastructure NSW’s responsibilities.
”We would be a prime mover in bringing the private sector into those investments,” he said. ”We want us to be a point of call for them [private sector].”
Mr Broad said another aspect of his job would be to provide reports that could act as guides for governments to follow. ”Our reports will be published,” he told the Herald this week.
”If you think of the Industry Commission type reports, which become reference documents … I think that’s a very powerful arm.”
This could be a very long post, or a very short one if I get bored of the task. But if history matters at all, and it may not, it’s worth looking at who did what to stall or enhance the NSW railways over the medium to longer term. We could then draw meaningless conclusions about what the encumbents or pretenders may or may not do…
And I should say right now that we have to look at context, too. Railway line closures have been going on for a very long time, just as Sydney’s (and Newcastle’s) extensive tram network grew and declined over decades (but it was Heffron for Labor who finally pulled the pin on Sydney’s real light rail system). You can’t blame Labor alone – in fact the Liberal Premiers have a slight lead in the ‘rail closures’ game overall – however you can accuse both major parties of an over-eager opportunism. Flood damage can be a great excuse to close a line, for example. But glib analysis ignores the elephant in the room: the motor lobby, and it’s venal, self-interested cohorts. If anyone – or any thing – is to blame, it’s the motor vehicle. Truck and car competition, fostered and lobbied by car makers, pro-car organisations and the oil companies, has been intense over the last 60 years or so. Money that could – perhaps should – have gone into improved public transport was used instead to subsidise road building. First it was sealed roads, then bigger roads, straighter roads, wider roads. Our appetite for roads seemingly knows no bounds.
And people – voters – actively chose to buy cars, house them in little boxes on their increasingly remotely-sited land and use them, “proving” that continued investment in rail was not in the short term interests of citizens or their elected representatives. You can blame the old media, too, for their glorification of subsidised personal car transport and self-interest in selling car-related adspace. Blame who you like, but we are all complicit in this crime.
So here goes… and E&OE, I’ll do the best I can but you will have to check it out for yourself to be certain! First of all – and my personal favourite in so many ways – is the Parramatta to Castle Hill line (it began as a steam tram, but later there were platforms and a direct connection with the main western railway). It actually continued onto Rogans Hill (from Castle Hill). It was closed in 1932 due to poor patronage. Jack Lang pulled the plug on this one, for Labor. Imagine if we’d have kept and developed that line. But people just didn’t use it, so you can understand why it was closed.
Some lines were closed formally by an Act of Parliament. At least they are clear-cut examples. They include:
Ballina closed 1948 - McGirr Labor. Due to landslides.
Westby closed 1952 – McGirr Labor.
Richmond to Kurrajong closed 1952 – Cahill Labor. Unprofitable, flood damage (you can see plenty of remains beside the main road if you look for it).
Morpeth closed 1953 – Cahill Labor. Due to siltation of the Hunter and Morpeth’s decline.
Kunama (Batlow) closed 1957 – Cahill Labor.
Taralga closed 1957 – Cahill Labor.
Camden closed 1963 – Heffron (hey, they named a park after him) Labor. Coal trade moved elsewhere. Imagine if we’d kept this one, too? Again, leftovers are visible for the keen-eyed.
Dorrigo closed 1993 – Fahey Liberal, suspended for a long time previously but still under a Liberal leader. Unprofitable, washaways.
Some lines are just “disused”, even though they may or may not have rail and sleepers, stations, platforms and bridges in place. You see these all around NSW – just look out your window as you drive around country NSW and look for raised embankments, fences, bridges and culverts where you don’t expect to see ‘em. According to this recent – and somewhat emotive – SMH article there are 58 such disused lines.
I’m not sure what is counted amongst that 58, but here’s what I can find:
Burcher branch – closed (maybe) between ’72 (Askin, Liberal) to ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Corowa – closed ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Kywong – closed ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Rand branch – closed ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Rankin Springs – closed ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Tocumwal branch – closed ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Tumbarumba – damaged by floods in 1974, not repaired (Askin, Liberal) and remainder closed in ’87 (Unsworth, Labour)
Tumut – damaged by floods in 1984, not repaired (Wran, Labor) but already on its way out in ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Unanderra-Moss Vale – stations closed ’75, ’76 (Askin, Lewis, Willis, all Liberal) but line open
Yass Branch – closed ’58 (Cahill, Labor)
Brewarrina – closed after flooding in ’74 (Askin, Liberal)
Coolah – progressively closed from ’75 (Lewis, Liberal) to last train in ’82 (Wran, Labor)
Molong-Dubbo – progressively closed, much of it in ’74 (Askin, Liberal) and finally and completely by ’87 (Unsworth, Labor). I looked at this one in 2009, pretty well taken apart now
Oberon – closed 1980 (Wran, Labor) but station closures earlier (Askin, Liberal)
There are more but circumstances (like mine closures) make it obvious that they would close anyway. Indeed if you take the emotion and politics out of it, many lines just lose their reason for being – for example if a mill or a mine closes. Or if trucks take away the business. You can’t blame Liberal or Labor for that, unless you see their weakness in the face of oil-fueled transport lobby groups, populous fuel tax policy and the like as their fault. Which of course it is. Every time we give in to the oil lobby and lower or limit the tax on petrol or diesel at the pump we are killing off the rail system. 10 years of Federal Liberal government under John Howard can certainly take some of the blame here with singularly populous politicking on fuel pricing, but Labor can be just as weak-kneed when it comes to the crunch. Let alone the Greens, unashamedly politicking on the issue.
We could, after all, simply keep all the infrastructure and use and maintain it at huge ongoing cost, or mothball it at a lesser cost. The hidden cost is what we can’t do with that locked-up capital. Or we can sell it off, raise more cash and redirect it into other public services. That’s the game in play that the media, the Liberals and the Greens are playing silly games over.
And then there’s the Eastern Suburbs line. Started under engineer Bradfield in 1926, it was stopped by Depression and World War. Originally planned to extend from Town Hall to Bondi Junction before heading south through Randwick and the University of NSW, most of it just got dropped. It was restarted in ’47 and abandoned in ’52 (both decisions by Labor). Restarted again in ’67 (Askin, Liberal) and reviewed and shortened in ’76 (Wran, Labor). And “completed”, if that’s the word, by Wran in ’79. Now if we had kept the trams (stopped in 1961, under Heffron for Labor) then the route-shortening may have made some sense. Now it just looks like bad planning. That’s hindsight for you, though. It’s worth noting that a spur was proposed to Bondi in 1999 but it was heavily lobbied against by the residents of Bondi, presumably because the utility of the rail system for them was undermined by the increased ease by which more people could travel from faraway parts of Sydney to visit Bondi Beach. That’s People Power at work.
This could be a very long post, or a very short one if I get bored of the task. But if history matters at all, and it may not, it’s worth looking at who did what to stall or enhance the NSW railways over the medium to longer term. We could then draw meaningless conclusions about what the encumbents or pretenders may or may not do…
And I should say right now that we have to look at context, too. Railway line closures have been going on for a very long time, just as Sydney’s (and Newcastle’s) extensive tram network grew and declined over decades (but it was Heffron for Labor who finally pulled the pin on Sydney’s real light rail system). You can’t blame Labor alone – in fact the Liberal Premiers have a slight lead in the ‘rail closures’ game overall – however you can accuse both major parties of an over-eager opportunism. Flood damage can be a great excuse to close a line, for example. But glib analysis ignores the elephant in the room: the motor lobby, and it’s venal, self-interested cohorts. If anyone – or any thing – is to blame, it’s the motor vehicle. Truck and car competition, fostered and lobbied by car makers, pro-car organisations and the oil companies, has been intense over the last 60 years or so. Money that could – perhaps should – have gone into improved public transport was used instead to subsidise road building. First it was sealed roads, then bigger roads, straighter roads, wider roads. Our appetite for roads seemingly knows no bounds.
And people – voters – actively chose to buy cars, house them in little boxes on their increasingly remotely-sited land and use them, “proving” that continued investment in rail was not in the short term interests of citizens or their elected representatives. You can blame the old media, too, for their glorification of subsidised personal car transport and self-interest in selling car-related adspace. Blame who you like, but we are all complicit in this crime.
So here goes… and E&OE, I’ll do the best I can but you will have to check it out for yourself to be certain! First of all – and my personal favourite in so many ways – is the Parramatta to Castle Hill line (it began as a steam tram, but later there were platforms and a direct connection with the main western railway). It actually continued onto Rogans Hill (from Castle Hill). It was closed in 1932 due to poor patronage. Jack Lang pulled the plug on this one, for Labor. Imagine if we’d have kept and developed that line. But people just didn’t use it, so you can understand why it was closed.
Some lines were closed formally by an Act of Parliament. At least they are clear-cut examples. They include:
Ballina closed 1948 - McGirr Labor. Due to landslides.
Westby closed 1952 – McGirr Labor.
Richmond to Kurrajong closed 1952 – Cahill Labor. Unprofitable, flood damage (you can see plenty of remains beside the main road if you look for it).
Morpeth closed 1953 – Cahill Labor. Due to siltation of the Hunter and Morpeth’s decline.
Kunama (Batlow) closed 1957 – Cahill Labor.
Taralga closed 1957 – Cahill Labor.
Camden closed 1963 – Heffron (hey, they named a park after him) Labor. Coal trade moved elsewhere. Imagine if we’d kept this one, too? Again, leftovers are visible for the keen-eyed.
Dorrigo closed 1993 – Fahey Liberal, suspended for a long time previously but still under a Liberal leader. Unprofitable, washaways.
Some lines are just “disused”, even though they may or may not have rail and sleepers, stations, platforms and bridges in place. You see these all around NSW – just look out your window as you drive around country NSW and look for raised embankments, fences, bridges and culverts where you don’t expect to see ‘em. According to this recent – and somewhat emotive – SMH article there are 58 such disused lines.
I’m not sure what is counted amongst that 58, but here’s what I can find:
Burcher branch – closed (maybe) between ’72 (Askin, Liberal) to ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Corowa – closed ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Kywong – closed ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Rand branch – closed ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Rankin Springs – closed ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Tocumwal branch – closed ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Tumbarumba – damaged by floods in 1974, not repaired (Askin, Liberal) and remainder closed in ’87 (Unsworth, Labour)
Tumut – damaged by floods in 1984, not repaired (Wran, Labor) but already on its way out in ’75 (Lewis, Liberal)
Unanderra-Moss Vale – stations closed ’75, ’76 (Askin, Lewis, Willis, all Liberal) but line open
Yass Branch – closed ’58 (Cahill, Labor)
Brewarrina – closed after flooding in ’74 (Askin, Liberal)
Coolah – progressively closed from ’75 (Lewis, Liberal) to last train in ’82 (Wran, Labor)
Molong-Dubbo – progressively closed, much of it in ’74 (Askin, Liberal) and finally and completely by ’87 (Unsworth, Labor). I looked at this one in 2009, pretty well taken apart now
Oberon – closed 1980 (Wran, Labor) but station closures earlier (Askin, Liberal)
There are more but circumstances (like mine closures) make it obvious that they would close anyway. Indeed if you take the emotion and politics out of it, many lines just lose their reason for being – for example if a mill or a mine closes. Or if trucks take away the business. You can’t blame Liberal or Labor for that, unless you see their weakness in the face of oil-fueled transport lobby groups, populous fuel tax policy and the like as their fault. Which of course it is. Every time we give in to the oil lobby and lower or limit the tax on petrol or diesel at the pump we are killing off the rail system. 10 years of Federal Liberal government under John Howard can certainly take some of the blame here with singularly populous politicking on fuel pricing, but Labor can be just as weak-kneed when it comes to the crunch. Let alone the Greens, unashamedly politicking on the issue.
We could, after all, simply keep all the infrastructure and use and maintain it at huge ongoing cost, or mothball it at a lesser cost. The hidden cost is what we can’t do with that locked-up capital. Or we can sell it off, raise more cash and redirect it into other public services. That’s the game in play that the media, the Liberals and the Greens are playing silly games over.
And then there’s the Eastern Suburbs line. Started under engineer Bradfield in 1926, it was stopped by Depression and World War. Originally planned to extend from Town Hall to Bondi Junction before heading south through Randwick and the University of NSW, most of it just got dropped. It was restarted in ’47 and abandoned in ’52 (both decisions by Labor). Restarted again in ’67 (Askin, Liberal) and reviewed and shortened in ’76 (Wran, Labor). And “completed”, if that’s the word, by Wran in ’79. Now if we had kept the trams (stopped in 1961, under Heffron for Labor) then the route-shortening may have made some sense. Now it just looks like bad planning. That’s hindsight for you, though. It’s worth noting that a spur was proposed to Bondi in 1999 but it was heavily lobbied against by the residents of Bondi, presumably because the utility of the rail system for them was undermined by the increased ease by which more people could travel from faraway parts of Sydney to visit Bondi Beach. That’s People Power at work.
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over the medium to longer term. We could then draw meaningless conclusions about what the encumbents or pretenders may or may not do…