I don't agree with the State Government's attempts to cost cut in this economic environment. Their plans to impose increased levies and taxes in this depressed environment does not help with any quick recovery and only manages to further drive down consumer confidence and spending.
Their plans to reduce infrastructure spending will only break the state's construction workers' rice bowls. Without private sector building, the state can now invest in public infrastructure to create a better state for when the economy recovers, and give those workers a job.
The Government's aim to maintain NSW's perfect AAA credit rating can be compromised at times like this when a stimulus package is more favoured. Our dramatic decline into the red can be attributed to billions lost from decreased GST and stamp duty revenue. The Government should really knock on Kevin Rudd's doors to demand our proper and fair share of GST income.
Major money generating items include:
- Congestion toll for the Harbour Bridge: $4 peak, $3 shoulder peak, $2 off-peak
- 50 cent levy on each ferry trip
- Increased mooring fees in eastern Sydney Harbour wharves
- Increased CBD parking levies for off-street non-residential parking in major centres including Sydney City, North Sydney, St Leonards, Milsons Point, Chatswood, Parramatta and Bondi Junction
- Offering leases for the Australian Technology Park and various Sydney Foreshore Authority Authority commercial assets including Darling Harbour
- Cancelling rail improvements including 6-line duplication Sydenham-Erskineville and deferral of Leppington link and Vineyard duplication.
- Proposed sale of NSW Lotteries and RTA personal number plates business
- Cuts in employee overtime and casual staffing in the health department
The money will go here:
- Construction of Sydney Metro to Rozelle starting in 2010 = $1.8b
- 300 new buses, 100 of which to go on north-west routes = $170m
- New OSCAR (intercity) trains = $380m
- New car parks at train stations = $56m
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Post a Comment [6 comments]
$4 "congestion toll" will do nothing. Most people will just pay it; it's not a big deal over $3 (especially for those that only pay the bridge toll). $5 would have been more appropriate to deter people away and would make it consistent with the ED. It's just silly I reckon.
I also doubt they'll get rid of the M4 tolls in 2010 either, considering the Harbour Bridge is still tolled.
Unknown |
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 7:03:00 pm
I call it highway robbery of the north. Notice how the north is dominated by Coalition seats, and now they've brought in congestion tax and cut the jetcats too. Poor northern people.
If they were so keen to implement a congestion tax, why is it not applying to all major arterials?
benny |
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 7:10:00 pm
I think everyone is asking that! lol
and yeh on the SMH..."NSW Premier Nathan Rees should change his name to Nathan "Ned Kelly" Rees because his de facto congestion tax on the Sydney Harbour crossings is highway robbery, the NRMA says."
Unknown |
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 7:22:00 pm
This more has to do with your post 4 down, but I'll put it here anyways :P
Ideally, the following should be done to the existing train network to make it decent:
Duplication of Quakers Hill to Richmond
Duplication of Rosehill to Carlingford (preferably connect to Epping and Parramatta eventually)
Triplication (with bi-di) of Hornsby to Berowra (if not Quad)
Triplication (with bi-di) of Sutherland to Waterfall (if not Quad)
Quadruplification of Hurstville to Sutherland
Quadruplification of Kingsgrove to Revesby (which is hopefully still happening) and preferably to Glenfield
Quadruplification of St Marys to Penrith
Quadruplification of North Sydney to Gordon (and eventually to Hornsby)
Quadruplification of Cabramatta to Campbelltown/Macarthur
Quadruplification of Strathfield to West Ryde and Epping to Hornsby
Sextuplication of Sydenham to Erskineville
Sextuplication of Granville to Homebush
Octuplication of Strathfield to Redfern (though will need somewhere to go after Redfern)
Also New CBD rail line with harbour crossing to support the projects above.
Grade seperation of flat junctions at Glenfield, Homebush and MacDonaldtown, and preferably Granville, Lidcombe, Cabramatta and Sutherland.
All of that would create a lot more capacity on the network and would allow more trains to be run without delays. These projects would also split out most of the lines into independent sectors as well (physically, unlike Clearways).
Then there's of course new rail lines, such as the North-West and South-West rail link.
Mind you, more than half of the projects I have mentioned were in the Action for Transport 2010 report, with some of those being projects for 2020, but the 2010 ones haven't even been done yet.
Unknown |
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 10:37:00 am
haha that's so many improvements... There is no way we would expect anything like that to happen even in our lifetime!
The day Sydney's transport works like a dream would be the day I would have long passed...
benny |
Friday, November 14, 2008 11:24:00 pm
I came here and hoped you had blogged about the mini budget lol. I'll comment more later, but erhm yeh the comments on the SMH site speak for themselves. No one likes it and it's silly. Just a cost cutting exercise as expected. I have my doubts the "metro to nowhere" will get started in 2010. The buses will be useless given the existing buses already stack up on the bridge coming into Wynyard. the rest of the stuff is just existing projects, though the extra OSCar trains do surprise me (but this might just mean they'll buy less A-sets). They only want the extra OSCars to use on the ECRL anyways...which wouldn't be needed if they had done it properly.