Worst Manager of Prosperity

[MTR]

A friend emailed this article, I think a very good read.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-...e-commodities-boom-20150424-1ms8hk.touch.html

I do agree with some of the comments, more money could have been pumped into infrastructure Australia wide, manufacturing got shot due to high Au$ ...

I know we do some things right, but we could have done way better, now we don't have the mining boom, its going to be a tough call.

MTR

 

[jerrybee]

It always amazes me there aren't bullet trains between the three most brain-dead obvious routes - Melbourne to Sydney, Sydney to Brisbane, and Sydney to Perth.

Hell, there's not even a direct train from Brisbane to Gold Coast, it stops a few suburbs short, it's like they almost got there and said ahhh f'k it.


Norway did the right thing during their oil boom - I read something like they shifted all their money into some offshore sovereign fund to keep their currency stable, and only slowly drop-fed it back in when needed.

 

[Norwester]

Hi JB,

It always amazes me there aren't bullet trains between the three most brain-dead obvious routes - Melbourne to Sydney, Sydney to Brisbane, and Sydney to Perth.

Not until the population density makes it affordable.....


There have been a lot of ideas floated around for years, but the accounting always kills it end the end.


So do people really believe that we just squandered the last years? Seems to be a lot of articles like this around atm......

Ciao

Nor

 

[jerrybee]

Hi JB,



Not until the population density makes it affordable.....

...or a once in a life time resource boom floods the country with more money than we know what to do with

 

[Norwester]

JB,


.

.or a once in a life time resource boom floods the country with more money than we know what to do with

Fair enough.....

But even if money wasn't an issue why would anyone want to invest it into what would be a "white elephant"....


So I guess what would be really interesting is to know is how much was "squandered" in dollar figures and on what........???

RRL project in Melbourne for example was granted 3.4 Billion of Federal government money in 2009......regardless of the politics was that squandering or money invested in required infrastructure........

I'm sure this is only one of many other examples out there.

Ciao

Nor

 

[Peter Parker]

It always amazes me there aren't bullet trains between the three most brain-dead obvious routes - Melbourne to Sydney, Sydney to Brisbane, and Sydney to Perth.

There's a certain sweet spot for population density and seperation between urban centres for high speed trains to compete with car and then air travel. Unfortunately it's not often found in Australia.

Sydney to Perth is completely unviable since the train would have to be incredibly fast to compete with air. And there's no significant population centres in between. The existing Sydney - Perth service is overwhelmingly a tourist rather than commuter service as cheaper airfares killed off long distance coach and train travel.

Sydney to Melbourne (and Sydney to Brisbane) is better due to the higher population served but even here you need a very high speed line (ie expensive, with a new alignment) to be competitive with air (despite all the waiting around airports).

But suppose that Canbera had 1 million plus population as did another city between there and Melbourne. Then there would be a lot of shorter trips that would make the train more attractive than driving. And because the speed required wouldn't be as high it would be a lot cheaper to build.

Such a train, even if not super fast (eg Sydney - Canberra in 90 - 120 min), should also become more popular than flying for Sydney - Canberra and allow Sydney Airport to concentrate on more lucrative longer distance flights.

A better connection between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, on the other hand, is practical and should be well supported, especially if it's faster than driving. Conventional modern rail like Perth - Mandurah readily achieves that with no special or expensive technology required.

 

[westminster]

A friend emailed this article, I think a very good read.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-...e-commodities-boom-20150424-1ms8hk.touch.html

I do agree with some of the comments, more money could have been pumped into infrastructure Australia wide, manufacturing got shot due to high Au$ ...

I know we do some things right, but we could have done way better, now we don't have the mining boom, its not going to be a tough call.

MTR

I am by no means an expert on such things but I would say the state projects listed (Melb and Sydney) weren't huge players in the boom so why would they have all the gain from it? Is the Sydney Morning Herald not slightly biased and east coast centric in it's view of infrastructure?

During those 10yrs all was not rosy but I saw a number of good projects begin in my own state - which itself contributed vastly to the boom. We got
- road upgrades
- train station upgrades for longer trains and more trains
- freeway extension
- 2 new hospitals (1 almost finished but funded from boom)
- new schools
- railway lines sunken to join Northbridge to the City
- Elizabeth Quays thought of and budgeted for

I live in a massive state which struggles to upkeep it's infrastructure due to it's remoteness and scale let alone get ahead.

That resources boom kept the GFC from biting deep into the Australian way of life. Using that money to provide tax cuts during the GFC kept many a business from heading to the wall.

And during that time Australia was able to dig deep for a number of Australian and overseas disasters - floods in Queensland, tsunamis in Asia and Japan

Hindsight can be so bloody clear to some I don't see that it's clear that it was wrong or right spending.

What I do wish is that someone had foreseen the budget crisis which has now affected the science world. Huge cutbacks at CSIRO etc which will impact Australia in the long term. If I could wind back a clock to say 'hey keep some money for them' I would. I'd give up something for that.

 

[BayView]

It always amazes me there aren't bullet trains between the three most brain-dead obvious routes - Melbourne to Sydney, Sydney to Brisbane, and Sydney to Perth.

In terms of what is the most important thing to spend our tax money on; fast rail between the three cities (or more) is not important at all- for the majority of folks in their life.

A small percentage of interstate commuters would love it, but other than them and tourists; there is little demand really.

Better public transport, roads, hospitals, emergency services, schools - the everyday stuff - are what matters to most folks.

That; and getting more free stuff from the Gubb, for doing stuff-all

 

[redwing]

From a 2011 post

Too Much Luck: The Mining Boom and Australia's Future

Too Much Luck: The Mining Boom and Australia's Future

Author: Paul Cleary

Is it possible for anyone to have too much luck? You wouldn't think so, yet Paul Cleary believes that while Australia is often described as the lucky country, what we have is dumb luck, too much luck, more than we know what to do with.

"Too Much Luck" is the title of Paul Cleary's latest book, and in it he reflects on the Mining Boom and Australia's Future. Paul has been reporting on politics and economics for more than 20 years. He's a senior writer with the Australian, and has been an advisor to the East Timor government.

Excerpt below...

Resource prices are currently looking to pull back

Interesting also is that Treasury secretary Ken Henry gave several speeches in 2008 and 2009 about the so-called ?dutch disease? the economic phenomenon where massive growth in the resources sector hollows out and depletes the rest of the economy. This would seem to tie in with the oft commented "two-tier" economy blurbs of late?

 

[propernewb]

I don't like the title "Too much luck". It removes any blame of economic mismanagement from those who were entrusted with the economy and our future. It suggests that our condition would have been better had we not been so successful; had we aimed a little lower; had we not punched above our weight.

It's absolute lunacy to have to reframe the debate as Australia being a victim of its own success. What a joke.

The truth is we had successive governments who were short-sighted and self-interested. That applies to both Liberals and Labour.
A once in-a-lifetime boom, but what has changed? I'm still driving down the same road that was there in 2003. I'm still visiting the same hospitals that were there in 2003. I'm still using the same telecomm infrastructure that was available in 2003. I'm seeing fewer jobs and less security for youth. I'm seeing universities flooded with overseas students at the expense of our own.

This is not "too much luck". This is treasonous mismanagement; the result of political parties interested in their own survival rather than the Nation.

 

[jerrybee]

Yeah it's true. I mean if you at other countries and their respective booms, they were fundamentally changed / improved from top to bottom:

Dubai, South Korea and China over the last 15, short years

http://smrt.ccel.ca/files/2013/07/999831_400908056685776_735248746_n.jpg

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media...l_progressive,q_80,w_636/18msfy0zfgqnmjpg.jpg

or Japan in the 80's

Then compare that with us.

Compare this photo of Sydney from 1939, just before WWII, to a more recent photo:

1939 Sydney:

https://tinyurl.com/kg3m9rd


Modern day Sydney:

http://cdn.scahw.com.au/cdn-1ce1eb3...s/id_149296/cf_7/sydney-traffic-chaos-628.jpg

 

[Ausprop]

the last thing this country needs is new anything in Sydney and Melbourne... time to get over it and build some new cities and infrastructure elsewhere.

 

[sanj]

the last thing this country needs is new anything in Sydney and Melbourne... time to get over it and build some new cities and infrastructure elsewhere.

Yes, no infrastructure should be built in fast growing cities, totally agree.

 

[Ausprop]

Yes, no infrastructure should be built in fast growing cities, totally agree.

another stupid comment. it's about priorities and nation building.

considered that maybe those cities shouldn't be the fastest growing cities?

oh and...

 

[JohnMichael]

Maybe if Elon Musk's Hyperloop between San Fran and LA works out, we could get something like that working here!

But seriously, high speed transport would be great. Very little of Australia's wealth comes from mining. It's a four or five percent from memory, and something like 70% comes from services. So the majority of Australia's wealth has come from opening up trade routes with Asia.

The vast majority of immigrants settle in our capital cities, which employ the vast majority of the people.

So things like well functioning infrastructure are so important to continue this wealth generating trend. High speed transport between the cities would have been an incredible boon to that, IMO.

That, and greater investment in innovation and entrepreneurs. Though our biomedical achievements have been fantastic, our IT / tech industry here is pretty much non existent.

The belief that our wealth has all come from digging stuff out of the ground and selling it, has been very crippling for our future, IMO. Mining companies make a small percentage of Australians wealthy via the stockmarket, but that is private business ownership, which is very different! They take the majority of their profits overseas, and Australian citizens see none of them.

If we had a burgeoning tech and startup scene, high speed rail links between the vast open spaces (or something similar), and other infrastructure advancements, then perhaps all that combined with our amazing natural climate and society, we would attract some of the smartest people in the world. Who otherwise end up in California, NY, London, Japan, the Netherlands, etc.

Nice beaches and friendly people can only get you so far, if the other aspects of life here don't compare on the world stage.

 

[MTR]

If we had a burgeoning tech and startup scene, high speed rail links between the vast open spaces (or something similar), and other infrastructure advancements, then perhaps all that combined with our amazing natural climate and society, we would attract some of the smartest people in the world. Who otherwise end up in California, NY, London, Japan, the Netherlands, etc.

Nice beaches and friendly people can only get you so far, if the other aspects of life here don't compare on the world stage.

Very good points, kudos to you

 

[hematite]

Maybe if Elon Musk's Hyperloop between San Fran and LA works out, we could get something like that working here!

But seriously, high speed transport would be great. Very little of Australia's wealth comes from mining. It's a four or five percent from memory, and something like 70% comes from services. So the majority of Australia's wealth has come from opening up trade routes with Asia.

The vast majority of immigrants settle in our capital cities, which employ the vast majority of the people.

So things like well functioning infrastructure are so important to continue this wealth generating trend. High speed transport between the cities would have been an incredible boon to that, IMO.

That, and greater investment in innovation and entrepreneurs. Though our biomedical achievements have been fantastic, our IT / tech industry here is pretty much non existent.

The belief that our wealth has all come from digging stuff out of the ground and selling it, has been very crippling for our future, IMO. Mining companies make a small percentage of Australians wealthy via the stockmarket, but that is private business ownership, which is very different! They take the majority of their profits overseas, and Australian citizens see none of them.

If we had a burgeoning tech and startup scene, high speed rail links between the vast open spaces (or something similar), and other infrastructure advancements, then perhaps all that combined with our amazing natural climate and society, we would attract some of the smartest people in the world. Who otherwise end up in California, NY, London, Japan, the Netherlands, etc.

Nice beaches and friendly people can only get you so far, if the other aspects of life here don't compare on the world stage.

Totally agree with what you have said.

 

[topcropper]

Very little of Australia's wealth comes from mining. It's a four or five percent from memory, and something like 70% comes from services. So the majority of Australia's wealth has come from opening up trade routes with Asia.

The vast majority of immigrants settle in our capital cities, which employ the vast majority of the people.

You are a bit mixed up there. Surely you realise that services are what a wealthy nation does with its wealth and productivity. That's why wealthy countries have services making up 70% and more of their GDP, and poor third world countries have small service industries. Australia has 70% of its GDP as services because we are wealthy, we are not wealthy due to our service industries.

So why are we wealthy? Mainly mining. Mining which makes up most of our exports. Germany is wealthy due to its manufacturing industries. This allows Australia and Germany to have massive service industries that employ 80% of the population.

See yas.

 

[mflying]

http://www.news.com.au/finance/busi...or-a-fifth-month/story-e6frfkur-1227329649961

Manufacturing is down.. and it's declining ...

Holden,ford, toyota left country and settled here

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/gujarats-sanand-set-to-become-the-next-major-auto-hub/181090-3.html


Tourism is slowly picking up.. but tourism related business is yet to re-open/show upward swing...

building boom is strangled between council and state laws..

 

[JohnMichael]

You are a bit mixed up there. Surely you realise that services are what a wealthy nation does with its wealth and productivity. That's why wealthy countries have services making up 70% and more of their GDP, and poor third world countries have small service industries. Australia has 70% of its GDP as services because we are wealthy, we are not wealthy due to our service industries.

So why are we wealthy? Mainly mining. Mining which makes up most of our exports. Germany is wealthy due to its manufacturing industries. This allows Australia and Germany to have massive service industries that employ 80% of the population.

See yas.

I was talking about how our wealth is generated now (and recently) rather than historically.

Yes mining was important to the Australian economy, a while ago. Agriculture, manufacturing, also played a much larger role in the past. But now services are what the bulk of the economy is centred around. Medicine, healthcare, educational services. But specifically financial services are playing a greater role, with Sydney being a financial service centre for the Asia Pacific region in a similar way London is.

I would just feel better if we put more money into techonology, and we had a better environment to encourage entrepreneurs. Compare how starting up a business is taxed in Australia vs somewhere like Singapore, and you can see why we are losing great businesses to those sorts of countries.