Great summary of the 'white-elephantine' nature of much on infrastructure Australia and the numerous quangos that preceded and surround it now at State level. Think Water ( desalination, dams, recycling) and you see a mirror image of railways.

Infrastructure in Australia is driven by vested interested (Unions, big construction/development groups and politicians). We taxpayers (the people who end up paying for it) don't get what they need to make their daily grind easier, they get what the hired consultants tell us we need.

Consultants are hired guns who deliver the message, the corrupt mayors/sheriff in town employ to make dodge city profitable for them and their mates. Oh and I am a consultant by the way, who refuses jobs that are clearly intended to deliver such "window-dressing".

Government subsidies? Public transport should be funded by the public via government. Australia us public transport poor, and rail is a good way of keeping idiots off the road. Death by idiot car drivers and and bloody great semi trailers is too common.

I gave up reading a quarter of the way into the essay. I will try to finish it though later.
In my view we need a pox on economic rationalists, not the ones who actually manage various enterprise no, the ones who have absolutely no concept of future economics.
In my area they ripped up an old rail line but are kicking themselves because every single person now says "If they'd only left the line open, it'd be a great tourist venture".
Rail transport should be supported by the Nation but not by pouring in millions of Dollars but by giving it trade.
People can think what they like but I think a Mono Rail system would be a future-proof infrastructure. Points to consider are, no bridges, no huge rail yards, other services such as power, water, communication etc could all be run beneath the rail, no digging up the ground, ease of serviceability, no need for wild life corridors, no flood damage, no valuable land having to be sacrificed, no rail crossing accidents, etc etc. Such infrastructure would be an on-going project offering on-going employment & service. I'd be a massive tourism project.
It'd be a long-term economic gold mine.

Individual and tbbn, come off the clouds you are on and think users pay, bang for your buck and fair use of taxes. Weal want better transport, just not pointless infrastructure that works and is worth the money we pay in taxes. We all want things, but he/she/it that pays for it have a right to demand value for money, not something that makes noisy activists/wokes happy and feeds the fantasy ridden minds of urban "space" planners/visionaries.

As for tourism, if they want it , they pay for it. I live in a small coastal village were all the infrastructure is geared to serve their whims, while those of us who live pay rates, work here, get treated as an inconvenience who get between the tourist focused shops/food outlets (that close at 5pm) and tourist dollars.

This is not the first time an incompetent economist has demonstrated an ignorance of infrastructure economics. Nor is it the worst (that award would have to go to the blog post claiming the Sydney Harbour Bridge shouldn't have been built) and it certainly won't be the last. But the claims in this one regarding the Alice Springs to Darwin railway and the Canberra-Eden proposal do at least provide a clear picture of some of the flaws in the argument.

David Hill in the 1980s couldn't foresee the mining boom of the 21st century, and we don't know what will happen in the future, though we do have some pretty strong indicators of rising demand (population is increasing, and commodity prices generally rise substantially each time a country industrialises). The line has been open for less than twenty years, so to label it an "economic disaster" is rather premature. Brendan has done so on the basis of the lower than expected profits. But the main point of infrastructure is to enable others to be more productive - the main beneficiaries are the users, not the shareholders.

And the claim that the Canberra to Eden railway proposal "is totally crazy because current travel (passenger or freight) between the two centres is minimal, and the only obvious reason why it was dreamt up is because the remains of the old rail line between Queanbeyan and Bombala still exist" misses the point completely. The real objective is to develop the port of Eden, making Canberra less dependent on Sydney. Until the port is developed and good links with Canberra are provided, of course there will be little demand!

I find it incredulous how foresight is still so lacking despite of so much hindsight at hand ! Some will never learn that successful infrastructure is not a quick-buck show but something that develops in a chronological way !
The countless failed projects are testimony to that mentality. The user should pay argument is well placed in major infrastructure for the economic flow-ons that ensues. Future infrastructure does actually mean future, not now ! The employment such infrastructure provides will be well into this future ! Those who think they shouldn't fork out for future generations should then forfeit their Pensions !