Indy,

Aged Welfare was introduced federally in Australia in 1909. On today's value that's trillions of dollars, and nothing to show for it, a whole herd of white elephants, agree? We could have built a super fast rail line around Australia, twice over, for what it has cost. AND at the same given well deserved tax relief to those long suffering landlords, with a bit of negative/negative gearing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n7ebIRxJrU
Paul1405,
imagine what infrastructure could be built for the money spent on this ? Puts us old age pensioners to shame !

What made me cringe with the Sydney to Newcastle fast train proposal was the expectation of generating about $500 million in fares annually for the $90 billion cost of the project.

Hi Fester,

"What made me (Fester) cringe with the Sydney to Newcastle fast train proposal was the expectation of generating about $500 million in fares annually for the $90 billion cost of the project."

I think the missing word there is "SERVICE" the idea of government provided services to improve peoples lives. Last year Australia spent around $59 billion on military expenditure, but I can't see one cent in revenue, does that also make you CRINGE? I won't even mention the cost of Aged Welfare, and how much revenue that generates!

Conservatives always believe any juicy plum the government owns, like a bank, shipping line, insurance company, telco etc should be sold off for song to the Big End Of Town, leaving government to operate the mill-stones around their necks education, health, military, welfare etc. Then they can whinge about how bad and inefficient government enterprise is.

Hi Paul,

You couldn't be more wrong. The VFT is like a monorail: An ego boosting toy for the elites to admire, of little or no benefit to most people, that takes away funding from essentials like health, education and roads.

Hi Fester,

I disagree, I support the notion of 'Bullet Trains', time is money. For example the train from Brisbane to Sydney takes a ridiculous 14.5 hours, even Sydney to Newcastle takes 2.25 hours to cover a distance of about 170km, the same time as a steam train took in 1960!

You like to refer to the success of other countries, like nuclear power in France, was something you believed justified nuclear power in Australia. Japan introduced high speed 'Bullet Trains' in 1964, what a success that has been, the last steam train ran to Newcastle in 1970!

You were in agreement with Dud Dutton, that Australia should spend $600 billion of taxpayer money on nuclear power plants that would produce less than 4% of power needed in 25 years time. Did you support that brain fart because it came from your side of politics?