Public Transport

[Greynomad]

News item on Qld’s statewide 50c blanket fare on all forms of public transport has now been in effect for 6 months.
There has been an average 18% increase in patronage, with the river ferries gaining 43% more passengers!
I note that Queenslanders can pay the fare with any credit or debit card, or their phone.
Victoria has had more than ten years of Myki, a proprietary debit card which must be pre-loaded with cash before using it.
The gummint STILL can’t get the system working properly… and it only operates on the metropolitan trains trams and buses.
Apparently switching to the Qld system is too hard for them. They are still throwing money at the problem — with no solution so far.

Another problem with public transportation is the rail line between Australia’s two biggest cities can’t handle our summer heat. There’s a 20km stretch just south of Albury where trains — including the XPT — are limited to 40km/h when the temperature exceeds 38deg!
The rails expand and buckle. Derailment is a major risk.
Maybe someone from V/line should visit the Pilbara area and ask how the mining companies manage to run 2km long heavily loaded freight trains 24/7 without problems when daytime temperatures hover around 45~50deg!

End of rant.

[supersparky]

Ray, it isn't just Qld that has a low cost public transport network. I'm fairly certain that both Adelaide and Perth both have a free inner city inner city bus network. Once you get a certain distance out you pay more. You can recharge the card by paying the driver too.
The airport link lines in both Sydney and Brisbane are privately owned and are expensive to travel on, when compared to the rest of the network.
Years ago public transport always ran at a loss, but then some bright politician invented the user pays system and a lot of things went pear shaped from there.
But then, back in the old days, all the govt owned services used to train hundreds of apprentices every year, but they don't do that anymore either. And they aren't run by the govt anymore either.
I could go on, but I'll leave it there.

[Greynomad]

When Jeff Kennet was Premier of Victoria, he argued that public ownership of utilities was wasteful.
He reckoned the private sector could operate the gas and electricity grid cheaper and better.
So he sold the govt-owned Gas & Fuel Corporation and the State Electricity Commission and the Melbourne Tram Company.
Funnily enough, not long after, prices in ALL of them went up, not down.
And the quality of service went off a cliff.
Kennet led a Liberal Party government, but Labor has been no better.
Our Labor local member in Werribee, Tim Pallas (who lives in Williamstown, not within the electorate) was appointed Minister for Transport before landing the Treasurer’s job.
Werribee had the worst public transport in the state prior to him being parachuted into the job (60% primary vote). And a road system inadequate for the population.
When he left office to take up the Treasurer’s post it was no better… in some areas, worse.
We realised that nothing would change until Werribee became a marginal seat.
Let’s hope that the by-election gives Labor a fright, if not a black eye.
Premier Allen says she’ll start listening to the voters.
IMO she’s about 30 years too late.

[supersparky]

And the worst part is, neither of the major political parties have seemed to notice that its all continued to go downhill from then on. It doesn't seem to matter what state or territory you are in, the powers that be continue to sell off public assets, and the cynical person that wears my clothes thinks it's all just so their mates can make another buck or two out of poor old Joe Public.

[native pepper]

As long as people continue to vote for the party system and give their preferences to the major parties, nothing will ever change. Problem is the political duopoly has no answers, they are almost all academics, bureaucrats, lawyers, economists and union hacks. None of them have real experience in life outside a school room and or office, so we get what we elect and we elect the dumbest people in society, so the results are foregone, dumb disaster.

Privatisation has been proven to destroy essential services and government enterprises, public transport is a prime example, as is banking where we no loner have people owned banks and so the banking system does what it wants, which is rip off the people.

If political donations were banned and every candidate was given one page in newspapers on news sites to put forward their agenda, policies and promises, as signed legal binding affidavits ans breaking them would mean a jail sentence, confiscations of all assets to pay for the damage they've done. We would probably get some decent outcomes. We are so stupid we allow then parties to pay themselves for getting votes with our money, how deranged is that insanity.

[T1 Terry]

It does have it's down falls NP, but it could be worse .... imagine if you lived in the USA, how long do you think Trump will continue to fund the FTA with Musk cutting any spending that won't affect him personally ....

T1 Terry

[Busman]

I could think of nothing worse than a mob of independents, all with vastly different views and adgendas trying to agree on the best direction for the country, that is a fantasy. At least the members of the 2 main parties have similar views so concensus can be reached and decisions made. What is far more disturbing for me is Simon homes a court pulling the strings with his teals, from the shadows. It seems he has lots of money in this renewables fiasco and wants the gravy train to continue. Before any greenies complain, our SMSF has money in some of these companies, one is called octupus, that should tell you something and they are there for the money, without the government handouts all that money would vanish overnight. That is why our power prices are so high, because all of these solar and wind farms are the recipients of so much government money.

[T1 Terry]

A governing full of independents is known as a committee. This all powerful committee would generate sub committees to debate each item on the agenda and report to the governing committee .... each independent is within their rights to also organise their own sub committee to advice them on how they should vote regarding the report from the governing committees sub committee ..... at the end of their 4 yr term, we would have a similar situation as we had after 4 yrs of Scomo, but we would have avoided Snowy 2.0 and the line "I don't hold a hose" and a staggering increase in the federal debt.

Basically, a govt of independents would still cost the tax payer for their wages and perks, but if nothing actually got through the government by committee, that would have been the limit of the losses .....

If we added a box on the ballot paper marked "None of the above" we could have 4 yrs of no dumb politically inspired spending, no politician's wages and all the hangers on payments, the lobbying industry would cease to exist, and maybe after 4 yrs, the political industry would realise that unless they really upped their game, the country was better off without them and the companies that thought they had bought political favours would realise they had thrown their $$ down the toilet, so they might think twice the next time the hands went out for "donations" in the hope of getting a better deal that suited them more than the public good ....

T1 Terry

[Busman]

I want some of those pills you are taking T1

[Greynomad]

T1,
At the last election in Werribee, where Tim Pallas was the Labor shoo-in candidate and a Very Forgettable wannabe was put up by the Libs (because they knew he had the same chance as an icecream in hell) was the only other candidate with more than one issue at stake, I marked my ballot paper, “None of the above. Please rewrite and resubmit.”
The second sentence is a direct quote from SWMBO’s teaching days.

Disappointingly, Pallas still won with 60%+ of the primary vote.
Looks like this time the people have woken up to the fact that they CAN make Werribee a marginal seat… and finally get some attention.