A lot of guilding of the lily here!

The Treasurer did no more than what had to be done! None of it bold or visionary! But should support the share market, CEO's salaries and performance bonuses, plus real estate values?

Cannot be compared to Chiefly who was the architect of the visionary, engineering wonder of the world, snowy mountains scheme!

We could build a fast train, a VLT from brisabane to Melbourne. As our snowy mountains scheme! And pay for it with the later sale of the rezoned real estate, adjacent to the new station stops along the way, on a mile wide corridor of resumed, rural land.

Albeit, done via an independent non-government agency to avoid prices to the power of ten above LEGITAMITE value!

Someone has clearly and massively robbed the taxpayer and such self evident fraud, needs to be addressed and rectified!
Alan B.

The VFT is that dream to be done.
It works in Japan and Europe but with smaller populations at each end
and greater distances between largest cities here the cost of a ticket
is greater than a plane ticket by a large amount and the train takes longer.
As much as I would like to see it, no one seems to be able to make it pay.
Basing it all on selling real estate along the way is a fine idea but
you have to find the industries to support those new towns.
As both parties seem to be committing to renewables it just does not
seem practical.
Until both parties commit to nuclear long term and coal for the next
50 years such new regional industry and VFTrains are impractical.

Bazz.
Money has never been cheaper! And if we wait for a decade? The cost will double. Two decades, quadruple! You really want that we should wait?

Simply put, energy as cheap as could be produced by MSR thorium 1.98 cents PKWH, or, by nuclear waste burning MSR, almost free! Is what makes it practical and affordable! And indeed, a smorgasbord of new high tech industries where the population builds up enough to make them economic!

Build it right the first time and we need never ever do it again!

And it will force airfares down to the point of ridiculous as they try and compete with the superior speed and superior convenience! You think that'd be a bad thing?

The proof of the pudding is, in new cities like the Gold Coast, filled initially, in the main, by retirees! And there's no rule that says they need be Australian or need to speak English. New hand-held technology allows almost any language to be instantly translated! The inflow of capital would be eye-watering!

The answer is and has always been, build it and they will come. And in numbers so large if we also include genuine tax reform and guarantee the water supply, all doable! We'd likely be killed in the stampede.

And we could simply pick and choose the most Automated, cashed up and high tech. Plus those companies who want cooperative partnerships! Cooperative capitalism!

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

Bazz. As far as I know, the trains you referenced are bullet trains that run on rails have many moving parts and come with consequent maintenance costs? 300 KPH seems to be as fast as they go?

VLT refers to vertical lift train. There's is one that operates today in China and where for all practical purposes, the only moving part is the train! Which by the way, is good for 900 plus, kilometres per hour!

And given so few moving parts or actual friction, far less maintenance. As the peoples' train, fares lower than any privately owned airline could ever get near! Who are saddled with the need to support millions of drone shareholders or the obscene salaries of CEO's/senior management, plus a debt burden that ordinarily costs twice what it normally costs government to borrow/service! And makes a complete financial nonsense out of, part or whole privatisation outcomes!
Alan B.

More “trickledown economics” destined to leave the workers struggling with unaffordable mortgages and crippling rents to pay from inadequate wages and insecure working conditions.
Those conditions will of course, be acceptable to third world immigration expectations designed to ensure stagnated wage growth: already a growing problem before COVID-19.

This is simply hugely small imagination “more of the same”, offering business another golden hand shake they don’t all need, on the most part.

From my observation, Australian Governments all seem incapable of prising unemployed workers off their lounge chairs to work on farm harvest imperatives, so from that it can be assumed a ready made excuse is available for mass immigration to continue unopposed.

I am totally unimpressed with this budget scam designed to further sectional interests.

Dan

Hello Darien, hope you feel the same after a few weeks.
A wide range of subjects and political leanings are the norm.
Cheers Bazz