HSR is another reason Malcolm Turnbull is where he is, he'll ensure windfalls profits blow the way of big business. And if he can ensure those windfall dollars are scooped from taxpayers, then he'll keep smiling without apology!

The author is quite right. If a business consortium thinks it can do this then let them dream - provided no tax payer money is involved they can only damage themselves. High speed rail projects seem to exert a fascination over the public, although a better freight network or faster connections to satellite towns (Bendigo? Newcastle?)represented vastly better returns for capital invested.

I'm Sorry, it's time to stop with all the business as usual prevarication and an over reliance on profit gouging private enterprise to get national interest, nation building projects done!

If we the taxpayers are to carry the can on this one by any means? Then let us shoulder the building burden as owner operators and finance much of it through the acquisition, rezoning and later resale of resumed for the purpose, land!

Done properly with enough vision and foresight, as already experienced, the later sales of rezoned urban land, should fund the bulk of the project!?

Which given it shares a transport corridor with the second busiest domestic air route in the world, simply has to be a very profitable venture!?

Always providing it can be kept out of the hands of undercapitalised debt laden private enterprise, whose borrowing costs almost invariably double that of governments! And all that's needed to entirely kill off an otherwise viable project!

Which along with the consequential profit gouging, is all one needs to destroy stillborn, a real competitor [and a nation building economic turbocharge,] to our budget domestic airlines?

Time to stop all the usual prevaricating and just get on with the job and this century's Snowy mountains scheme, which as any expert will tell you, is also undoable and unfundable, let alone completely pay for itself, [albeit to the Grandchildren of the foundation lenders,] and earn an eventual profit!
Alan B.

HSR is not much use for generating increased land values, particularly today.

The old land booms depended on the fact that rail was the only reasonably fast form of land transport. At their still relatively slow speed they could stop very regularly to gather passengers or agricultural produce, while delivering mail & bulk freight. Hell in the mid 50s we still had special dedicated trains doing the job school busses do today, carrying students to & from towns in country NSW.

Today such a system is not needed. Just look at the way small towns, once the lifeblood of the country are dying. People drive a considerable distances to major centres, rather than use small towns.

HSR of course can't stop too often, or it ceases to be HSR, & performs no better than Thomas the tank engine. It can only be designed to service capitals & major cities. If traffic was available other than very major cities the airlines would be servicing it. They are not.

It will only be a local nuisance, interfering with farming practices, & local traffic flows.

If they are allowed to start, they will fail, & pressure from vested interests will mean the tax payer will end up picking up the load & the mess.

No thankyou.

Sorry Has, but that airy fairy summation has simply not been the experience in Japan, with stops as close as 20+ klicks for their bullet train? which currently holds the speed record for VFT's of around 600 kilometres per hour?

While it is mostly acceleration and deceleration in between stops, with top speeds limited by that fact? Commuting at average speeds of 350 kilometres per hour, would beat the hell out of current commuter trains or gridlocked in the daily traffic jam.

Like most also failed hasbeens, I believe, you almost invariably know all the reasons it can't be done or won't work? And probably explains why we as a nation are incapable of any more visionary nation building projects?

I can live with failure, but only after a red hot go! My children and grandkids would expect no less!
Alan B.

Well' thank you Alan B. I guess you will be happy walking up to 10 kilometres to your local HSR station. That should reduce your commute time very well.

Get real mate, it is a furphy, & just another scam to waste taxpayer money. All it will ever do is allow some smarties to get a good bit of the money before the failure.

One advantage of being a hasbeen is we've been there, done that, watched the fall out of big dreams, & can see the next one coming.

Of course the never was is still dreaming.

I like the sound of this idea, but why should a private company do it and gouge consumers for it when the government could just do it itself and own it instead of the private company?

I agree with Alan B, but I also think we should massively expand the project to become a new national highway linking all capital cities as well as the HSR, and water, power, internet infrastructure as well and drastically reduce the cost of building this venture by instigating a new work for the dole scheme which trades work for skills training, allows people to earn double their dole (while they are unemployed) get paid daily and work anytime - existing workers in the workforce can get extra work if they want, including owner / drivers - jobs and training for the indigenous - clean up closed mine sites and use raw materials for the project.

They worry about rise of cost of housing?
Well bring the country to the city, and the rich city folk to the country.
We'll build massive factories to roll out made to order removable homes straight off the production line onto the back of trucks and delivered anywhere on our new efficient national transport network transport.
We'll get everyone having a go and being productive starting with learning the power of the humble tractor.
We'll transport water where its needed and hook in dams and desalination plants, well build thorium plants and lower the cost of energy for business, well build sunfarms and build em cheap, knock a star picket into the ground, mount the solar panel to the mounting frame and drop it on the star picket and wire it up.

The new work for the dole system will give people real fast skills and lower the cost of government expenditure across the board and provide opportunities for unemployed and semi-employed people to get ahead, putting funds for discretionary spending in the poorest of pockets.

The 'cant do it' attitude never got nothing done.
All you have to do is think about how YOU CAN.

Walk 10 klicks? Why not? Even so, less distance than the average 50 kilomtre forced marches Has would recommend as the minimum?

One would think he's never heard of connecting monorails, moving walkways and so on which act as feeder arteries that then amplify the profitability of a fully integrated user friendly system!
Alan B.

When the Clem 7 tunnel was built under the Brisbane river a few years back the state government decided the best thing to do with the hugely expensive tunneling equipment was to bore it into a side chamber and seal it up.
Maybe dismantling and moving it would've been costly but to throw such an important piece of equipment away...
Well I still cant see the sense in it.

Earlier this year near were I live they upgraded or built a culvert for a very small creek under an existing single lane carriageway.
3 months later, and with (my guess) 15 workers working full time each day the job was completed.
Not sure what the cost was, but I'm guessing half a million dollars.
I can't understand why it took more than 2 or 3 weeks.
If this is what it costs to do things then its no wonder nothing big ever gets even contemplated.

Alan B, why do you insist in living in the 20Th century, then trying to apply 21st century technology to try to make it work.

With modern communications there is absolutely no reason to transport 10s of thousands to a central point for work. This is such a ridiculous system today, I can't believe some still see it as the way to go.

First move all those thousands of bureaucrats out of the city, & spread them around the medium & outer suburbs. This eliminates 50% of the city bound workers. Many more that are only in the city to cash in on the over paid bureaucrats spending will have to follow them.

In one simple move, you have eliminated about 65% of city bound commuter journeys. Then private transport, or small local public transport can do the rest, without generating the huge congestion city based employment causes.

You even save the cost of huge white elephants like HSR, which is a loss making enterprise every where it operates.

The highest recorded maglev speed is 603 km/h (375 mph) , hardly worth the expense. On the other hand a rail gun at Mach7 is ten times as fast , Sydney-Melb in 6 minutes with magnetic capturing-cylinder at the receiving end and no structures between the cities.

The fast enough rail project, which requires an upgrade and
straightening the route, together with upgrading track standards to
those used in the UK. That will halve the time Sydney Melbourne to
about five hours at 200Km per hour.
We already have the express rolling stock.

This I believe is the solution for the 21st century. It is all we will
need for the rest of the century and we maybe not even that for the next.

The 22nd century will not be anything like the present time.