Interesting informative well researched article, which ought to be required reading for every coalition member; or at the very least, the constantly mislead voting public!
Wayne Swan would do well to borrow and blow up these graphs, and display them once a week at a national press conference. And or, in several full page ad spreads from now until the election.
The heading could read, "have you been lied to, again"!
One notes the Author didn't address the structural deficit!
Which unless or until, addressed with GENUINE tax reform, can only guarantee increasing public debt and a growing problem in the face of continuant falling revenue?
Which would likely be responded to by the coalition's Ideologues, with spending cuts and or austerity, which in truth, [cause and effect,] can only ever further compound and exacerbate the falling revenue problem!
A single stand alone entirely unavoidable expenditure tax, would act to reduce private debt, given said tax just taxes all spending, regardless of whether the funds are drawn from savings or a debt instrument!
Set at a painless 4.8%, it would add around 100 billion PA to consolidated revenue; and, negate the need for any compliance spending, thereby adding some 7% to the averaged bottom line.
Part of our problem is quite massive infrastructure shortfall spending, which we might now say, has reached chronic proportions and creates numerous significant bottlenecks in both production and economic performance.
Politicians of all stripes come out and extol the virtues of this or that project around election time, with very rapid rail trotted out time and again.
Simply put, we could start to roll out rapid rail tomorrow if we had but one political party genuinely behind it and indeed, many other income generating nation building projects, that seem too big as concepts, for the tiny minds running the country?
Or should that read, corporate Australia?
Rhrosty.

There is no serious political debate in Australia or anywhere else in the English speaking world. Both sides of politics simply keep repeating their favourite talking points over and over and over again.

In Australia both sides of politics are not so much policy free as vision free zones.

Really important issues eg:

--What to do after the minerals boom

--The impact of technology on employment

etc

are never discussed.

Here's a reality check:

--Tony Abbott is not a misogynist

--Julia Gillard is not a dangerous Communist

Neither of the pair are what could be called confidence-inspiring

The real problem is not debt, public or private, but the fact that Australians have to choose between those two.

Private debt is paid by the debtor, if it fails and they can't pay, tough for the lender (that's why they get higher interest rates). Not the same as Public, some Leftie decides on the back of an envelope and without any further analysis to spend some tens of billions on a high risk project and when it inevitably fails, my grand children will be mere Peons forever paying for it.

And now the latest insanity of a 114$B (200$B+?) VFT from a government who couldn't build school halls (tin sheds) or safely play with pink bats.

That is truely dangerous.

>>some Leftie decides>>

Talking about "left" and "right" has become a substitute for thought.

500 pages of in depth and professional analysis ever, is hardly the back of an envelope.
Incredibly asinine remarks and moronic bagging, is the reason; surely, we as a nation fall further and further behind.
When Japan rolled out her VFT, the total cost was just 5 billion!
Done today, it would cost at least ten times that!
In the interim, it has returned at least 50 billion to Japan rail.
We need to understand, we can't keep on doing what we've always done.
Peak oil has already decided that for us.
Any infrastructure project deferred for a decade, invariably costs the taxpayer double.
Even if we were not to build a VFT now, we do need to resume and set aside the corridor or corridors.
If only to contain the runaway costs, that will be ours, when we are compelled to build alternative transport options.
If you think 114 billions is a lot of money, how would you feel if the cost of doing nothing, had forced the final price 40 years from now, to in excess of 900 billions?
Simply put, nothing ever becomes cheaper to do with time.
We would be better served by people who knew how we could crack on and get the big projects done, now today, before the real cost really does become prohibitive.
Look, anything that produces a financial return over and above capital outlays, is doable off budget.
As one other poster noted, all that is lacking, is nation building vision.
We know how to build railways, we know how to make steel, we own all the material and expertise we need, all that's missing is the vision and the political will.
114 billions may seem a lot of money, but spread over forty odd years, it's only 3 billion a year!
Surely we can find 3 billion per, from a 400 billion PA tax base.
And given we could expect to see returns in around 4-5 years, some of, or all this 3 billion per, will flow from income earned by the project, years before it is completed!
Rhrosty.

Come on Rhrosty, even in Japan the damn things have had to be bailed out financially a couple of times.

Why the hell would you spend billions of tax payers’ money on a thing that could never pay its way, & would cost billions again to keep running? Why indeed when we have companies silly enough to run airlines that do it better?

Hang on I think I know. Dozens of ex labor pollies can get in on the act of consulting, or getting management positions, & the builders laborers, & other construction unions love it. Lots of fat jobs & contract subletting for all..

Yera a must have for sure.

Road Transport costs and the fiscal burden on the states and Commonwealth are not only high but also continuously rising. The expansion of road transport facilities intensifies traffic congestion. The basic reason is that motor vehicle use is subsidized and thus the growth of the freeway and highway system leads to an increase in the demand for their use which increase private debt levels. Locally sourced production that saves money on transportation costs is what is needed to contribute to the revival of manufacturing and Constrain Chinese import model. Being near your market will be more important in the 21st century cut the growth in private debt levels

What is urgently needed is more public transport and active transport, to end subsidites to car commuters and increased tariffs on imported cars and turning Australian car production around to electric cars and petrol electric hybrids

This is simple economics. You subsidize something, people use more of it. Few who use the roads pay the full cost of their use — especially when you consider the costs of things such as urban pollution, depletion of oil reserves, global warming and focusing on road maintenance. Indeed, some parts of the road system are at breaking point now. The road foundation is so bad in parts that just laying new asphalt won’t work as the surface doesn’t last. As the surface gets rough, traffic slows and backups begin.

In the forseable future Australians will spend more time idling away in traffic. Congestion will continue to raise the cost of transporting goods. Costs to use this network will just go up and up. Thinking of it in this way, it signals a crisis for an old order and perhaps the birth of something new.

The old order — namely corporate giants — benefitted tremendously from subsidized roads. What Coles and the big distributers is to send its cheap, China-imported crap across the country’s subsidized road networks? In fact, just about any big business that depends on roads as part of a competitive cost advantage will find tougher competition for the forseable future