Go get 'em Lee. While you're in this 'public disclosure' mood may we gaze at the contract that handed over the old Sydney Showground site to Foxtel?

And just to push our luck a little further may we take a peek into the mysterious file on Lionel Murphy? I'm sure his son Cameron Murphy, who is a champion of an open and free society, would be overcome with joy if his late father's file was opened. I think we're mature enough to handle it.

The problem is not with this road being privately owned.

The problem is with how the public is made to pay for it. Whether we should pay for it through taxation in general or a specific toll. Either way we can not avoid paying.

If the government had built the road with debt, then we as taxpayers would still need to pay the full debt. The banks would not be discounting the loan if the road did not reach projected volumes.

Some questions of importance are then:-

1. What is the upside cost if the road is popular? Will we ultimately pay more for a popular road than an unpopular one (through tolls and taxes)? Do we assume both upside and downside risks?

2. Is the tunnel the best place to put the toll? Maybe a toll into the city would be a better place to collect the relevant revenue. In terms of how a toll influences behaviour, is it smart to keep the road we want to decongest free of charge, whilst charging to use the road we want to fill?

I think such roads should be owned by the private sector, financed by the private sector and operated by the private sector at least for an extended period. However I don't think they should be paid for on the basis of traffic volumes. A fixed annual operating cost should be negotiated up front, and the revenue raised using either a government operated toll system or from general revenue.

I believe in user pays.
I believe in private road owership.
I believe in private road construction.

However I don't think the current means of paying for private roads makes any sence

Great hunting Lee, now we need the Gov Gen to sack these criminals, as well as taking back our public property, we pay many taxes to fund this stuff, not fund someone’s salary of a mate and his mate and all their mates, Taxpayer guaranteed rip off for rotes, these contract are not private enterprise it is a criminal conspiracy. Try and Build another road( Compertition) along side of it.
It should have been funded by Government and a minor tariff applied until it was paid off, i.e.,” Newcastle Freeway” years ago, that’s a fair cop, this at the moment is un- armed robbery, and where the hell is our money.

This is absolutly terrific. Here we are trying to save fuel, reduce green house emmisions etc.etc. and one key thing that would help all this would be to signifcantly improve our mass transit utilization.

BUT we would have to give more additional funding to the operator of the tunnel if any mass transit improvements are successful.

I think the federal government should have the ability to force out a state government and force a new election.

Surely anyone running a business has to factor in risk however, it seems in the new business paradigm, they (the toll operators) factor out risk by expecting compensation in the event that projected profit does not eventuate. Our toll-meisters are basically holding the NSW government, but more importantly the public, to ransom should they not achieve their financial projections.

Who signed off on these contracts? Make their names public.

What can we say.It all just gets more farcical by the day.You watch the buck passing and scape goating scenarios ensue.Nothing will change since the structures and rules in the Govt and PS are there to protect the incompetant under the sacred umbrella of "The Process".It's happened before and will happen again.

To quote a previous blogger;"It is no secret what Govts do with our hard earned taxes,it's just a matter of which wall they will choose."