Celivia

“The Libs sold off Victoria's public assets”

Jeff Kennett had to sell off a lot of things simply to dig the state of Victoria out of the hole the Cain / Kirner had dug us into. I remember the fuel levy because that fool, Jolly promised to underwrite the collapse of Pyramid. I also recall the $3 billion loss the Victorian government incurred through its incompetent excursion with Tri-Continental. $1000 for every man woman and child in the state, up in smoke because of socialist incompetence.

Public Assets, government is not vested with the competency to run a railway or transport company. I see no “public benefit” from running anything at a commercial loss and then forcing tax payers to carry that loss in increased taxes.

“There will be objections to every plan to reduce greenhouse gases, but ‘something’ needs to be done.”

The increasing cost of oil will be one thing which does take care of it. By shifting the base cost of oil, the viability of “real alternatives” immediately improves.

The topic of greenhouse gases and global warming have not be resolved. I recall doomsayers of the past who predicted the collapse of the Industrial age in the nineteenth century and those who said we would all be out of work because of developments in automation in the 1970s and of course, the “Paperless Office”.

Today’s "flavour" is "climate change and global warming", a nicely packaged bundle of nonsense designed to scare the bejeebers out of the gullible and ensure a few scientists and visiting “experts” have a first class seat on the gravy train.

Have you seen the sunspot correlation chart?

I would seek it out and ask yourself, if it is true, nothing we can do will influence “global warming” regardless of every intention.

“Police, Fire Brigade and Street lighting” are all public safety issues, public transport is not, some would say it is the opposite.

As tax payers we are the investors in public transport and "government" does not have “authority” to run any business at a loss with our taxes.

http://reg.org.au/REG%20HOME.htm

Col, I haven't read you on global warming before however it comes as no surprise to find that you are a sceptic. There is a huge correlation between GW scepticism and those who are politically conservative and believe in free market economics. There are plenty of discussion forums covering the doubters, who cite 'poor science' (the science is pretty good and not credibly challenged) 'it's a natural cycle' (the only other times when there was equivalent global warming, it was catastrophic for life on earth), 'the jury is out' (it's not - overwhelming consensus among climatologists and other scientists, the sceptics are politcians, journalists, economists and other conservatives).

Your 'sun spot' theory is a new one to me, Col. Yeah, and the sun will turn into a black dwarf in 200 million years or so. So nothing cam or should be done about GW, right?

More and more politicians and business leaders have come to the realisation that GW is reaal and happening much faster than previously though, that it will be catastrophic if left unchecked. These are responsible people not prone to being swept up in panics or flavours of the moment.

Think again, Col.

“Railway stations should have oodles of parking - big multistory car parks, that only require you to put your validated rail ticket in at the end of the day to exit for free. “
Laurie, I am all for this excellent idea.
A multistory car park at every station that includes a safe section to park bikes is a must if we want to get people use the railway system.

Col,
Selling off public assets is never a good idea because it doesn’t benefit the taxpayers. Col, face it- both Labor and Liberals are promising to buy back the regional rail system at the up coming election! That just proves it should never have been sold in the first place!

Imagine that public schools, public toilets, public hospitals would be sold off as well- who says that they won’t end up in some off-shore company’s hands? Evens scarier would be a privatised police corp.

Australian assets should be kept in Australia. It’s the government’s responsibility to do the right thing with OUR taxpayers’ money and look after our assets. Why sell your house to pay the mortgage? It’s bad economic management- it’s false economy.
What does Victoria have left?

“…up in smoke because of socialist incompetence”
No, because of corporate greed which the government tried to ineptly rectify. Like Howard did when his brother’s company went belly up. Libs are no better than Labor- at least Labor ‘attempts’ equity, whereas the Libs just favour the wealthy and big business.

I do agree that at first, improving the railway system will take long and cost too much, don’t forget the system hasn’t been maintained; but when it is completed and kept well maintained it will eventually be an essential alternative for transport in our oil-needy times.
The fast rail system need not have been so expensive if the Kennett govt. had been prevented from its privatization rampage in the first place.

continued

Isn’t one of the reasons we have a government: so, services can be provided that capitalism alone cannot provide in a fair and equitable manner?

Otherwise, why have a democracy- the alternative is a form of feudalism where the poor provide services for a tiny minority of rich.
We pay taxes for services, why should essential services be controlled by profit motivation- it’s simply corrupt and ultimately inefficient.

“Have you seen the sunspot correlation chart? … if it is true, nothing we can do will influence “global warming” regardless of every intention. “
I’ve heard about it. Is the sunspot thing a good reason to continue to pollute, use all the world’s resources, exploit third world countries…simply because ‘global warming’ may not be true?
There is nothing to lose by being cleaner if it doesn’t prove to be true, and much to gain, namely a cleaner environment and an improved rail system, whether it turns out to be true or not.
Even if the environment wouldn’t be an issue, we know that we will run out of oil some time in the future.

“…nothing we can do will influence “global warming” regardless of every intention”. A pathetic excuse eagerly snapped up by the Rich to continue with exploitation and pollution.

“…and Street lighting are public safety issues- public transport is not, some would say it is the opposite.”
Yeah one can feel really safe on public transport since they sacked a lot of the rail staff.

One more thing about third world future eaters:
In third world countries, where women are given the opportunity for education and self determination (control over their fertility & ownership of land, business etc) they always reduce the number of children they have – that’s what independent, educated women always do when they have freedom of choice and equal opportunity. Hardly ‘future eaters’. The real ‘future eaters’ are those who think that because they are financially secure and are ‘alright Jack’ they don’t have to do anything about social equity and sustainable living – except to criticise others less well off than themselves.

col rouge continues to avoid disclosing his professional experience and pretending he knows more than the rest of us.

Let's have a guessing game - what does Col actually do?

I suggest he is an out of work comedian who should have stuck to his day job.

What are your suggestions?

Col_Rouge there is considerable debate about whether the Cain_Kirner government was driving Victoria into bankruptcy. People are questioning why there was no outcry about the Liberal opposition throttling supply. Definitely some of the state government departments had restructured to improve their efficiency.

For example the State Electricity Commission employed a third the number of employees in 1992 than it had in 1988. Privatisation of this asset has cost Victorian society the following - 1000 less apprentices trained each year, no planning for future electricity demand, increased brownouts when electrity was spot sold in Dec 2000, no jobs in LaTrobe Valley leading to fall in house prices from $120,000 to $30,000

Privatisation of MMBW meant that no accumulated knowledge of Melbourne's geology was used in construction of the tunnel. All the retrenched MMBW engineers had dispersed. Actually Transurban was a skip-free zone, south african and canadian engineers and kiwi labourers. Do we still pump 1 million litres of drinking water into the Burnley Tunnel each day?

Rail enthusiasts note that the cost of rail construction is borne solely by rail users but the cost of freeway construction is borne by local councils, state and federal governments - very rarely do users pay for the roads they use. So in Col Rouge's user pays utopia bring on the Scoresby Freeway toll road.