The property council infrastructure wishlist

Logging old-growth is the worst rip off, of resource going on in this country. Grrrrrrr.

Logging is a bit of a welfare industry too – paying people to do something noone wants them to do, because it is the only thing they can do.

Childcare though – this is going to be a bigger and bigger social issue in the next few years and I don’t think it’s a welfare issue.

Many people think of anything that doesn’t benefit them personally as welfare. Oh, the selfish times we live in.

That’s how the Property Council can pretend that government handouts to its interests aren’t welfare.

Can I have some of whatever thetruth is smoking? This hairy-chested business sector in Australia has always been about capitalising the gains and socialising the losses, as the current economic debacle (sorry, ‘correction’) demonstrates. Running around telling all and sundry that they’re the salt of the earth. If they were as good as they claim, they wouldn’t be holding their hands out now.

Sorry, its just showing my ignorance. I see a sector being a region on some magical pie chart.

Welfare recipients flatter themselves to be an economic “sector”

They’re money taken from the productive, put to a use that’s slightly better than some of the alternatives.

I include tax farming child care centres, and the automotive industry, in that list.

Thetruth.”Who do you think earns the income to pay the individuals”
The individuals do with their labor. That’s what they are paid for

“In case you haven’t noticed a recession means businesses don’t do well”
The recession is caused by business not doing well (Rampant greed). They just do worse in a recession.

Maybe the whole economy is a bit to advanced for me. So I would need help.

If $97 billion is spent on welfare, what would be the total turn over of buisness in Australia?

I want to know how much money is in the rest of the economy getting?

How much are the non welfare sector earning?

Its just my $420 a fortnight doesn’t seem to be that much to what others are earning.

nomnomnom said :

@thetruth: Using your same logic, it is the individual walfare that provides the people the money to buy the items that drive the businesses.

It is one big circle, businesses get hand outs to grow and provide jobs, individuals get hand outs to keep them alive and to stimulate business growth. Welfare being given to consumers is the ultimate test of market forces, much like cutting taxes, they give people the right to choose what they want to spent their money on and how they want the market to grow. The only difference between a tax cut and a welfare increase is that rich people get tax cuts and poor people get hand outs.

Giving money directly to businesses allows them to grow in a manner not supported by the market, and is, by definition, inherently centralist and anti-competitive in nature.

Yes – BUT the economy is not a closed system. business sells stuff overseas (export) and this grows the pie and when people get consumption dollars they can choose to buy locally made or overseas made stuff (import). So the tax system has to allow business to compete on a global scale.

The $97 billion in welfare payments is not all to those that deserve it. just raise the tax free threshold to $20k and get rid of the public servants that handle the tax and pay back system that Howard institutionalised – very inefficient

@thetruth: Using your same logic, it is the individual walfare that provides the people the money to buy the items that drive the businesses.

It is one big circle, businesses get hand outs to grow and provide jobs, individuals get hand outs to keep them alive and to stimulate business growth. Welfare being given to consumers is the ultimate test of market forces, much like cutting taxes, they give people the right to choose what they want to spent their money on and how they want the market to grow. The only difference between a tax cut and a welfare increase is that rich people get tax cuts and poor people get hand outs.

Giving money directly to businesses allows them to grow in a manner not supported by the market, and is, by definition, inherently centralist and anti-competitive in nature.

The PCA dont support light rail directly, but a mass transit backbone of light rail with integrated bus connections at park and ride and transport nodes fits nicely with proposals 8 and 9.

regards

Damien Haas

Chair – ACT Light Rail

dexi said :

thetruth So what your saying is that company tax doesn’t even cover the contribution to the sick, poor, and unemployed of our community. I would say companies need to pay more tax, another $32 billion by your figures. At the very least business should provide a basic level of support for all Australians. Especial as the top end takes such a huge proportion and resource wealth comes from the land we all live on.

Individual welfare is only a basic need. Its more like breathing than cancer. Its how we stay alive.

Who do you think earns the income to pay the individuals??????? In case you haven’t noticed a recession means businesses don’t do well, when businesses don’t do well they don’t employ people, when people are unemployed they go on to welfare. See the cycle – a bit too advanced for you I know.

Also we have not added in the Payroll tax, the stamp duties etc (because remember for remedial folk that we have several tiers of government). About 250 million per year is paid in payroll tax in the ACT alone – the second highest source of non-Commonwelath revenue. Remeber to that the Commonwealth does not pay payroll tax. BTW the highest source of non – commonwealth revenue is conveyances (yes property folks).

The point is that most of that $123 billion collected in tax is given back as welfare payments (remember that this is in the BIGGEST BOOM in our history!

What folk forget is that business is the most competitive sport in the world! There are about 5 billion people involved all playing as if there lives depended on it. Now some people can poo poo that, but they don’t give back the benefits. They just point to the bad bits.

thetruth So what your saying is that company tax doesn’t even cover the contribution to the sick, poor, and unemployed of our community. I would say companies need to pay more tax, another $32 billion by your figures. At the very least business should provide a basic level of support for all Australians. Especial as the top end takes such a huge proportion and resource wealth comes from the land we all live on.

Individual welfare is only a basic need. Its more like breathing than cancer. Its how we stay alive.

Quokka said :

How about a 3rd hospital??

We did actually have 3 public hospitals until the government saw fit to blow one of them up in 1996. Since then we’ve expanded the population by about 50,000. Result – some of the worst waiting lists in the country, and patients that die in the waiting room because of a lack of beds in hospital!

We all just had the chance to kick them out in the “festival of democracy”, but chose not to. The tribe has spoken, we accept that the hospital sucks and that a certain number die. If we cared we would vote accordingly.

NickD said :

Can anyone understand what #8 is about? – it’s totally unreadable. #3 seems to be calling for an 8 lane Constitution Avenue (4 lanes of traffic + 2 lanes worth of on-street parking + at least 2 lanes reserved for light rail) – that doesn’t leave much room for it to be “a lively tree-lined boulevard”!

hmmmmmmm 8 lane Constitution Ave, perhaps the Dragway will live afterall…… 🙂

I like this list of projects, especially the ones about fixing transport problems. I guess that would be 7, 8 and 9 primarily. I get the constitution avenue thing too. My husband used to work at Russell and the traffic at the beginning and end of the working day sometimes got really jammed up. I’ve heard its pretty bad trying to get a park around there during the day too.

I don’t really understand the constitution ave obsession either. It isn’t even by the lake.
And it isn’t overly busy right now.

No 8 might be about making current rat run roads like antill st and officer cres into actual 2 lane main roads to move traffic from Gungahlin to civic.

Can anyone understand what #8 is about? – it’s totally unreadable. #3 seems to be calling for an 8 lane Constitution Avenue (4 lanes of traffic + 2 lanes worth of on-street parking + at least 2 lanes reserved for light rail) – that doesn’t leave much room for it to be “a lively tree-lined boulevard”!

It’s odd to see the VFT at the top of the list – that was proven to be totally uneconomic about a decade ago, and the ‘nation building’ Alice Springs to Darwin railway is about to go bankrupt.

#2, 6 and 9 are great ideas, but the rest are a bit odd.

54-11 said :

What bothers me about all this is that the PCA is a rabid bunch of developers, whose sole focus is on increasing Canberra’s population as much as possible so as to create super-profits for themselves.

The reality is that Canberra is not big enough for many of these projects, unless thay are fully funded by the government, or where private enterprise is involved, there must be huge tax breaks to make it viable.

In other words, more welfare for business, who do nothing but suck off the the public tit.

I.e., parasites.

I will remind the socialist parasites that companies contribute approximately $65 billion of the $290 billion total receipts and provisde the vast majority of the jobs that give rise to the $123 billion individual taxes as well as the goods and services that provide the $42 billion in GST.

The “business welfare” bill is so insignificant in relation to the $97 billion out of $280 billion spent on individual welfare. Yes that right $123 billion collected from individual and $97 billion returned as individual welfare. If we spent the same amount on health we would double the health budget, if we spent the same on education we would quadruple it.

Individual welfare is the cancer on our future.

How about a 3rd hospital??

We did actually have 3 public hospitals until the government saw fit to blow one of them up in 1996. Since then we’ve expanded the population by about 50,000. Result – some of the worst waiting lists in the country, and patients that die in the waiting room because of a lack of beds in hospital!

“If NSW government has a chance of moving aircraft noise down here, they may well pony up for a VFT link…”

LOL.

.

What bothers me about all this is that the PCA is a rabid bunch of developers, whose sole focus is on increasing Canberra’s population as much as possible so as to create super-profits for themselves.

The reality is that Canberra is not big enough for many of these projects, unless thay are fully funded by the government, or where private enterprise is involved, there must be huge tax breaks to make it viable.

In other words, more welfare for business, who do nothing but suck off the the public tit.

I.e., parasites.

No push for light rail. why? they sniffed the wind? were told to scuttle it?

Comments Damien?

Multi function polis! LOL havent heard of that in a long time. good call eddie.

Could someone explain the data centre issue to me? I manage three data centres for my gov department if we need another one we simply create one. Is this just some private company that has good PR?

shanefos said :

Hdopler said :

Maglev is better value, faster too.

Well, sir, there’s nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car monorail!

Oh, God. Does this mean Mike Jeffreys on 2CC will be wheeling out that tired old sketch from The Simpsons tomorrow morning yet again and giving it another run?

The Very Fast Train will be built just after the Multi Function Polis and the Canberra light rail system.

If NSW government has a chance of moving aircraft noise down here, they may well pony up for a VFT link. I agree that it should extend to Melbourne, but I can’t see it happening. I can’t really see the canb-sydney link happening either, after the mad rush before the 2000 Olympics that died a very quiet death shortly thereafter.

Well maybe he should build it then.

The VFT should have been implemented years ago. Not just running from Sydney to Canberra, but also to Melbourne.

When the airport was first sold to a privateer, the early plans were for the airport to become an international gateway, to bring international flights in when Sydney was closed for curfew: have them processed by Customs and Immigration, and then load them on the VFT to Sydney. And from memory, the VFT was also involved in some of the freight ideas too. Either way, having a VFT at the airport has been integral to Snow’s international all-night airport plans from the start.

ok it like this….

ANYTHING that involves funding from NSW that primarily benefits ACT (ie fast trains and Kings Hwy) does not have a snow flakes hope of getting up – they are nearly broke;
The VFT will take too long to get up and spending (so not a good recession buster); and ACT votes labor no matter what – no votes in protecting Canberra (will consider Eden- Monaro through).

The property council are dreaming……..

I predict that Rudd will sacrifice the ACT to save the rest of the country (He does not require any of the Canberra ALP for his power base and the territory are all true believers)

Yes to all except for this constitution ave thing – “It will allow Canberrans to travel to and from work in the precinct efficiently and safely, providing productivity and life-work balance gains.”

We already can travel down either constitution Ave or parkes way perfectly well thank you.

and what the hell are “life-work balance gains”???? These guys really shoot themselves in the foot when they start using crap like this to try and sell a concept.

housebound said :

Haven’t we been down the ‘Maglev vs Other’ track long, long ago? (no pun intended)

The Johnny Howard ‘investigation’ into the ‘viability’ of a VFT which resulted in a consortium trying to flog the oldest, slowest and lest suitable “VFT” as Johnny said that no tax payers money should be spent? that report? *smirks* yeah, it has been done before with the result of the total collapse of the consortium trying to build the thing – and no wonder why!

realistically a proper conventional train line would do wonders.

A proper line is twin track and electrified.

Anything else is a spur line.

Oh and I second the Shinkansen comments.

Haven’t we been down the ‘Maglev vs Other’ track long, long ago? (no pun intended)

The only reason a VFT is at all attractive is because the current link is a VSET (Very Slow and Expensive Train). It’s the ACTION of the train world, meandering at fairly significant expense through NSW to eventually drop you in Sydney.

See my comments above.

johnboy said :

Maglev still has to be cooled to near absolute zero correct?

Notso hotso for Australia perhaps?

Nope. Take a trip on the one in Shanghai, good fun and will give you an idea of what we should be capable of as a nation. Maglev is proven technology in real-world application at this very point in time in a number of countries.

We can be on the map like North Haverbrook

Remember folks, this is the Property Council (now claiming to be the ‘Voice of leadership’). I am so sure that not one of these ideas have anything to do with increasing land values and developers’ incomes.

As for the aged care idea, rezoning land = land grab. There’s already enough completely vacant land with nothing on it and already zoned as commmunity facility. What do they want? Valuable foreshore land, valuable inner-city land?

I used to be a Maglev fan, but since actually travelling on the Shinkansen I’ve become a convert. The sense in buying “off the shelf” product also appeals. (It’s about more than just the train too – you have to replicate the whole “walk on to platform, buy ticket, train arrives on schedule, walk on to train” experience, or there’s far less point. No check-in counters, security lines, baggage checkin/claim etc etc).

So . . . when pondering the prospect of an ACT budget deficit in advance of his economic stimulus roundtable, Our Beloved Leader is moved to remind the community that “the round table was not about the Government suddenly being full of ideas or cashed up and willing to contribute cash to initiatives.”

But when talking about a cunningly timed release by the Property Council, Mr Stanhope is admitting to actually being full of ideas that are identical to the Property Council and require funding from the Federal budget deficit.

Maglev still has to be cooled to near absolute zero correct?

Notso hotso for Australia perhaps?

Hdopler said :

Maglev is better value, faster too.

Well, sir, there’s nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car monorail!

Maglev is better value, faster too.

I like all those proposed ideas. Now just to wait and see if they become a reality!

The voice of the airport sure speaks loudly in those submissions. If they do a VFT, they should go no further than Japan, talk to the companies that build the Shinkansen and ask for one like that, please. (I am not holding my breath, though).

I reckon a Barton Highway upgrade is needed before the Kings, too.

‘snice picture, though.