Rehctub, you are right of course it is cheaper to send by truck but
at that will change as fuel gets more expensive.

When I sit on the station and watch a hundred or more containers go
thundering through at near 100km/hr all under the control of two men
I just cannot see sleep deprived truck drivers competing.

It has to end soon and the sooner the better.

Bazz,
Possibly my imagination but there appears to be less trucks crossing the Nullarbor these days and then I see those enormous container trains running through Kalgoorlie and I suspect it is not imagination.
Over trans con distances these trains would have to be more efficient.
SD

Yes SD you are right. If they could get the city terminal organised so
local trucks could receive containers of trains quickly & easily it
would mean even shorter trips by rail would be more economic.
Which was the point of my comment about using the car factory to build
automatic container transfer equipment.

The very basics of economics is that free trade always benefits both parties, and that messing with market via protectionism always comes back to bite everyone in the backside.

Protecting the car industry, has for decades provided jobs for thousands of workers, but increased the cost of transport for hundreds of thousand of businesses and many millions of consumers, increasing the cost of living, and of manufacturing pretty much every thing else.

The point of subsidies is to get a new industry with potential off the ground or protect an industry through a temporary glitch. When the industry needs tariffs and subsidies to survive day to day, it has become a parasite, and needs to be cut off.

EXACTLY shadow minister.. so many people only see one side of a problem. Wealth is created for everyone by profitable free enterprise. When governments start to meddle with the economy….That's when the problems start.

Why is it that WA has the highest unemployment figures when they neither have a car industry or a canning factory?