Tax reform can do two essential thing simultaneously!

Lower the individual tax rate to the point that all those too clever by half schemes can be junked; given the lowered rate could save the average AUSTRALIAN operator around 7%, currently ripped from the bottom line by compliance! And increase the amount of revenue raised!

Ending the need for compliance ends the need to part with this money. And an 18% (adjusted for 7% savings, @11%) single stand alone unavoidable expenditure tax; does just that, as as the only tax needing to be collected!

All the other convoluted and costly complexity can be jettisoned, along with all the unproductive parasites that live off of that complexity!

The GST can be replaced by a direct funding paradigm, that increases the coal face funding by a much as 30%, without actually increasing the real funding totals!

And just by eliminating the number of entirely unnecessary in-between hands and handling, all of which have a cost component!

Rapid rail along the third busiest air route in the world, has no choice but to succeed.

And can be largely funded by the later sale of some of the necessarily resumed then rezoned land.

Naturally, a number of people, will try as they might to buy up land on the supposed corridors, to try and make a financial killing!

However, if states and councils are relived of rezoning responsibilities along national highways and byways, (projected) this can be avoided along with the prohibitive costs this would create!

In the interim, self terminating thirty year bonds, will get many of these things kick-started!

Can't died in a cornfield over a century ago!
Rhrosty.

plerdsus, what makes you think high speed rail from Sydney to Melbourne would not even cover its operating costs? High speed trains overseas don't have any trouble doing so. And like air fares, the ticket prices would vary depending on time of day.

Did you not realise that for most passenger train services in Australia, fares are set by political rather than commercial considerations? That's not always a bad thing BTW, as it does reduce the amount of traffic on our roads.

<<Apparently Rhosty does not realise that if someone borrows, someome else has to save, and that they won't save unless it pays them. >>
If someone borrows then whether it pays them or not, someone will save because the money has to go somewhere! That someone could be an individual, a business, a superfund, a bank, a foreign investor or the government. But the saving is NOT a prerequisite for borrowing.

<<Today we live in an area where tax levels in Australia are much higher than in neighbouring Asian countries, so that anyone with a bright new idea is well advised to emigrate to somewhere where he can reap a reasonable reward for his efforts. >>
There's no idea bright enough to guarantee a profit. Increasing the chance of those efforts succeeding is often more valuable than increasing the reward for success.