The Federal government is trying to force the NSW government to
undertake two projects that it does not want to go ahead with.

The first is the rail line from Epping to Rouse Hill.

The Rudd government made an agreement with the previous state labour
government to build a line from Epping to Parramatta.
The problem with this project is that you can at present travel by
rail from Epping or Carlingford to Parramatta with one change of train.

The state government prefers to build the line to a growing area with
no rail transport.

The 2nd problem is a second airport for Sydney.
This will be a multi $billion white elephant.
By the time it is finished with the additional rail works required
it will not be needed.
The price of fuel and therefore air fares will be such that only rich
businessmen and politicians will be flying.
Indeed some experts believe that the airlines will be closed down
sometime in the next ten years. I know this is an earth shattering
revelation to some but fuel is already the largest single cost that
airlines try to manage with hedging.
The upshot is there will be less air travel in the future than now.
You no doubt have heard of peak everything, well this is peak air travel.

These two projects have all the hall marks of another labour disaster.

The Federal government is taking a take this money or lump it attitude.

Both have massive impacts on the Nation.
The airport if not started soon, sidelines Sydney as a tourist and business destination.
Far from the first Federal intervention, the Franklin Dam comes to mind.
I think if one level of government was to go, and it could not be the wasteful local government,State should go.

Well Belly, I guess you are one of those cornocopians who believe there
is no limit to what resources we suck out of the earth.
All the cheap easy oil has been found and is starting to deplete.
The only new oil is expensive, hard to extract and the wells have a
comparativly short life.

It will probably take 10 years to build the airport and then another
20 years to pay off the finance. Do you really think we will have
mass air tourism in 30 years time ?

The only way it could be financed would be with Australian government
bonds. A good way of insuring they will be worth less than Greek
government bonds. Australian bonds are risky enough at present.

Bazz, no prizes for guessing my angle on this. If Sydney is just going to be allowed to keep rapidly growing, then they are going to have IMPOSSIBLE issues with transport, and all sorts of other things.

I think it is highly duplicitous of the federal govt to be trying to force the NSW govt to undertake transport projects when it is the feds that insist on having very high immigration and consequently very rapid population growth in Sydney, and hence the need for much better transport infrastructure.

And it is also a bit rich for the state government to complain about federal pressure if they are not applying as much pressure as they can to the feds to reduce immigration.

Of course, what BOTH of them should be doing is listening to Bob Carr and working towards net zero immigration and a stable population for Sydney and Australia.

Then and only then there might some point in them haggling about transport projects.

Gentlemen I find it unfair to forget I too am more than concerned about population.
Bazz you slipped away from your thread like an eel.
You made no claims about population growth.
I saw a question about who should have the control not population.
While we visit the fringes of your first question, your favorite, peak oil, is blinding you.
Do not be miss lead by green fear campaigns, or petroleums self interest.
We are going to have fuels for century's, the world is not going to pass away as we do, not for lack of fuel.
The population, no matter what we want,even with no further migration, is going to grow in Sydney.
We can blind our self,divert the subject, find new problems, even if we manufacture them, in ALP.
But if we do not build that air port, even consider a very big one to be a replacement for the other,Sydney suffers.
As the thread slips sideways and up and down I am unsure what it now is about.
So may not return, lets watch.

Affordability will be the largest issue facing us moving forward.

The amount one spends is what determines the viability of any business and, as fuel increases, these increases have to be passed on, so eventually the consumer will stop spending.

As for fuel, farmers, truck drivers, and several others are about to loose their fuel subsidy, now add to this the certain impost of the upcoming carbon tax and many businesses will fold.

So I tend to agree that it would be a brave move to build another airport, just like it is building the NBN, when consumers can simply opt to not spend.

The boom in air travel has come about via cheap air fairs.

Take these away and the industry wil suffer, just how much is anyone's guess.

Better to have an air port struggling to meet demand, than demand struggling to service an air port.

I think we are in trying times (globally) and we would be best to sit on our hands at this point.

After all, our treasurer has only just started to come out of denial.

You are wrong Belly, the future supply of oil is at the heart of all
considerations of all future developments.

Have you not noticed how difficult is for countries to get any
significant GDP ? Without excess GDP you can do nothing.
The increasing price of oil and coal is burning up our GDP.

Ludwig, you are dead right of course, population is the amplifier of the problem.
As well as increasing normal demand it increases travel requirements and immigrants travel more than the rest of us.

What Rechub said is also correct, the cost of energy is cutting into
everything we do. Fuel is an overhead in running any economy.

Peak Air Travel is with us now whether we wish to accept it or not.
Something else you need to remember we do not pay the US$105 oil price
that our media tells you about.
We are not at Cushing Oklahoma but we pay US$134 at Singapore.

The upshot is we need to pour the resources available now into land
transport, in particular rail. Forget the high speed rail what we
need is "Fast Enough" rail like they have in the UK which is about
twice NSW speeds. It will not need new dedicated permway just the
technical improvement and most importantly straightening the tracks
built with horses and scoops.

Bazz maybe I am, but it could be you too.
This year or the next oil prices will go very high, maybe extreme shortages, due to things like Iran, Syria North Korea.
Things briefly will get tough.
As a result other fuels will be found /used and real start to new fuels to truly being profitable.
It is the self interest and trillions of dollars to be lost by petroleum that stalls this.
Air port
Both sides of politics understand the impacts of not proceeding.
To our National Economy.
NSW is holding out for political advantage,and its costs, no other reason.
But, by the federal election, both sides will promise it.
How then will you see this if it is not the stone you wish to throw at Labor while blind to the impacts?

Look Belly, there is no way any of these other alternate fuels can
replace oil & coal. They just cannot be scaled up.
You said;
As a result other fuels will be found /used and real start to new fuels to truly being profitable.
>
But right there is the problem with these new fuels. They cannot be
produced with a sufficient gain of energy input over output so the
money side of it is irrelevant. Corn ethanol has a ratio of about 1:1.4 !
Sugar ethanol is better but not that much better.
They all use large amounts of diesel to produce and transport them.
In any case we do not have enough land.

Short term shortages are not a problem, they are short term.
You said;
Both sides of politics understand the impacts of not proceeding.

The trouble is they don't.
With the Epping-Parramatta railway, it is not needed, there is already
a rail service there ! The Rouse Hill line is badly needed.

Barry O'Farrell thinks we need another airport a long way out of Sydney.
We will not need it, Peak Air Travel is either here now or soon will
be when oil prices force passengers off planes and onto trains.
At present if I travel at off peak times I can fly to Melbourne
cheaper than I can by car, however at peak times the car is cheaper.
The train is between the two costs. It cannot be long before the off
peak air fare is more than the train. Another $40 on the oil price
would probably do it. Some expect the Tapis oil price to be $200 by
the end of this year.
I don't know what to expect, it won't be lower thats what I know.

Our population is a double edged sword.

On the one hand many would like to see it slowed, if not halted, while on the other, inf like high speed rail is just not affordable as there are not enough people out there to use it.

Where parts of urope have say 15 million people, we have 1 or 2 million. The sums just don't add up.

Like anything, if it could handle peak hour without suffering, it would lay idle for 20 out of 24 hours, and that is simply unaffordable.

We either build the inf to attract more people (must have jobs), or, we leave it as it is.

The reality is we have gone from having strong savings to massive debt in just over four years. We simp,y can't afford to continue down that road.

I say make do with what we have, ride it out, then revisit in a few years.

Now is not the time for taking risks, especially with regard to tourism, as nothing will change until the dollar drops, and that looks unlikely in the near future.

Rehctub, we have a major infrastructure problem ahead of us to get
ready for a restricted energy availability and at the same time
invent a new energy regime. We should not be exporting our natural gas
as it is an alternative transport fuel for areas where it cannot pay
to build a railway. I know, I know someone we will say we have 100s of
years of gas, but not if we have to use it to run our economies
transport as well.

It is the scale of the oil industry that upsets many peoples
understanding of these things. A good illustration is to look at Japan.
It uses 8 million barrels a day (before Fukashima).
It has to have 4 two million barrel tankers arrive in its ports
EVERY DAY !
A round trip to the Persian Gulf takes about 100 days.
That means 400 of the worlds largest tankers are engaged in supplying
just Japan.
And we think we have problems !

Bazz, I'm with you there, I don't think we should be exporting our gas either, or at least not giving it away, which is the case.

Trouble is, take away the gas and coal, what's left?

There is little doubt we are in a right mess and, if the likes of China cut their spending, we will be in huge trouble.

Another huge problem is that our governments are now reliant on mining income (taxes) just to keep the wheels turning, whereas, these taxes should be money going in to the bank, for the day when mining is no longer the driver of our economy.

The selling of assetts ( minerals) should be for profit, not to repay debts, or to fund the hanger oners.

Once they are gone, the debt will still be there and those who take from the system will still be there as well.

Then what?

Frankly Rectub, I wonder if we have left ourselves enough space to
avoid a major collapse.
The Chinese have been making noises that they think we are ripping
them off (typical buyer tactic) but they have been investing heavily
in both Sth America and Africa mines.
They must now be ready to start screwing us down.

If that happens Wayne Swan's revenue will be in real trouble.

At present the government is relying on mining tax income to bring in
alternative energy systems. However they want to wind down coal & oil
and ultimately gas fired electricity generation.
However those very sources of energy are going to be needed to build
the alternative systems !

'The problem with this project is that you can at present travel by
rail from Epping or Carlingford to Parramatta with one change of train'

You obviously don't live in Sydney do you.

Carlingford line is just that, 1 line, with 1 train, that runs hourly if your're lucky.

Back when I was at school the then state government (Seriously this is about 20 years ago) said they would link Parramatta to Chatswood via Epping. It was one of the 25 or so major transport announcements in the last 25 years of which none have happened.

About 15 years later, the government excitedly announced it would do half of it, from Epping to Chatswood.

Then, at the final hour before the last election, in an attempt to steal a few seats for Labor Gizzard tried to give KK a leg up and approve the second half of this long awaited revolutionary idea of people not travelling from Parramatta to North Ryde via Strathfield on train.

Anyway, I thought you lib supporters were dead against the Build it and they will come...

'The state government prefers to build the line to a growing area with
no rail transport.'

The carlingford line does not count as rail transport. It's more one of those black and white movie hand-cars from the wild west.

The carlingford line...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handcar

Never the less the Carlingford line is active and used.
There is only about 1 1/2 km between Epping and Carlingford stations
so anyone in between has only a minor problem.

A far bigger problem is the absence of a line to Rouse Hill.
The districts it will pass through have a population of 100,000 at least,
like Carlingford Rogans Hill, Castle Hill, Kellyville, and on to
Rouse Hill.
It is just silly to say that the Epping to Parramatta line would be
more suitable.
Ridiculous to even discuss it.

'There is only about 1 1/2 km between Epping and Carlingford stations
so anyone in between has only a minor problem.'

Seriously?

The problem to be solved isn't people getting somewhere from around Epping/Carlingford, as both places are only good for a Korean takeaway.

If one lives in Parramatta and wants to work at Chatswood or North Ryde, in order to get to work they would have to train it to Clyde, change to carlingford, get a bus to Epping, and then a train to North Ryde or Chatswood.

Or they could train it out to Strathfield, and then back up north to Epping, which is a ridiculous detour.

'It is just silly to say that the Epping to Parramatta line would be
more suitable.'

Well I never said that. Why cant they do both anyway?

No one would seriously change at Clyde if they were going to Chatswood.
You would simply get on the train at Parramatta and get off at Chatswood.
Thousands every day travel Epping to the Western line and Parramatta
via Strathfield. A regular frequent service.
That is why the line Epping to Parra is so silly when much more
important projects are needed.
You said;
Well I never said that. Why cant they do both anyway?

Because Julia said so !

Direct more flights to melb; second air port.
Life is only affordable as you want it to be butch.
QLD is a basket case as hasbeen for years, after Joe.
Can-do will fix it, so he says, 1100 new police and give em all speed cams.
Qld has the worst unemployment of the states, and will get worse before getting better.
People have had enough of being ripped off by retail.
The big retail stores are far more friendly in price.

The airlines are in no doubt about their problem with fuel.
They like to talk about reducing CO2 but it does not take much to read
between the lines. Alan Joyce spelt it out.

Read this Airbus bulletin;

http://tinyurl.com/7kd8spl

They want to have major plant on each continent producing biofuels
for aircraft. Just where do they think they can obtain enough land to
say nothing about water to grow such an enormous area of crops.
The area will have to be double in size to produce the fuel to
cultivate, harvest, process and transport the fuel.
This is because the ERoEI is not better than 1:1.4.

Finally it will get down to whether you want to fly or eat !
Probably, it will get down to whether the rich countries want to fly
or the poor countries want to eat.