How anyone can knock an addition to the national infrastructure such as the new Adelaide-Darwin 3000 km rail link offers is beyond me.
The link has been a long time coming, promised by politicians for 150 years, it is now a reality and the country’s export/import and defence ability is greatly adhanced.
Chris Corrigan from Patricks talks about the link having a return equivalent to a tick’s testicles and Tim Fischer rightly replies; some tick, some testicles.
Corrigan is a bean counting profit and loss motivated buisness man and would view any new project from a pure commercial view. Fischer, a politician and one time Deputy PM views such infrastructure from a national viewpoint.
The potential to open up trade between Australia, specifically Adelaide and Darwin, and our near norther neighbours is huge. Who gives a damn if it doesn’t show a profit for five or even ten years. In one step it alters the logistics of trade enourmously.
Don’t think of the link as a 3000 km rail link between two Australian cities. It is clearly much more than that. It is in fact the bottom end of a rail-sea link between Australia and all of our trading partners. Those long established partners; those being developed and those who have yet to sign up.
Defence is well served as well by the new link. When the Leopard tanks first come onto the ADF’s inventory, visionaries wanted to bring them north so Infantry (all situated in the North) and the tanks (all situated in the south) could get together for training. Too hard. The rail link between Victoria and Queensland couldn’t carry them. Rail tunnels alone prevented movement of tanks. This abysmal state of affairs has been rectified but the lesson always stayed with me. National Transport infrastructure should always be placed against a military template of needs during the planning stages.
I can recall in my last days in the Army commanding 100 vehicle convoys to Darwin as the ADF come to grips with the obvious need for a defence presence in the Territory. The logistics of such moves were horrendous on both vehicles and men and the trip could take up to 14 days while we waited for the slowest vehicle. Now they can all travell at the same speed, on flatbed rolling stock-overnight
Corrigan and his bean-counting type need to lift their thinking beyond ticks testicles and think on a national and global scale.
The completion of the rail link certainly ranks as one of the country’s great engineering feats. It involved the laying of 2.9 million tonnes of ballast, 2 million sleepers, 140,000 tonnes of rail and 8 million sleeper fastenings across its length. Perhaps the only comparable rail project being undertaken on this scale, albeit under vastly different conditions, is an 1100-kilometre line being built from Qinghai to Lhasa on the Tibetan plateau.
The link was completed in two years and after 150 years of promises from various Prime Ministers I am pleased to get up the nose of the Howard Haters by pointing out John Howard made it possible by supporting the project with 150 million dollars and talking it up so private enterprise entered the game.
My daughter recently bought a Golden Retriever puppy that redefines ‘cute’
What do you reckon?
This is a test picture post.
Whatever your politics, whichever God you believe in – I wish you and your family all the best for tomorrow and the days to come. My new patio is up and keeping the 35+ degree summer sun at bay. The pool is clean and inviting and tomorrow – the holy day of families, all my children and partners will be here. This hasn’t happened for several years as they all followed the path of many before them tasting the mysteries of Europe. Albeit lifted by the experience they are all very glad to be back in Australia.
20 plus in-laws will be here as well (my own family are in West Australia) and some old Army friends will drop in.
Muslims, Christians, Agnostics, Athiests, Hedonists, Caucasions, a Jew, Aboriginies, Chinese/Malay, Poms, Kiwis and Paddies. Hate Howard, laugh at Latham, Left-wing, Right Wing, Don’t know and Don’t care will all gather at my home at Taigum – symbolic of what is good about Australia.
Have a good one! I intend to.
Well, I hope the farmers are happy because I’m not. Coming from the land I’ve always been in tune with their rain requirements but enough is enough. The drought was broken the moment I decided to start rebuilding the Patio. An eyesore and dangerous example of jerry building, it had to go.
I bought the timber and Solarspan sheeting with 50 ml of polystyrene insulation to handle the tropical heat. I lined up the plumber, electrician and carpenter but forgot to pay homage to the weather god.
Thirty minutes after I disassembled the old construction the drought broke. Now open to the weather, my bar, lovingly topped with Jarrah parquetry reflecting my home in Pemberton, West Australia – the heart of the Jarrah and Karri forests, is ruined as are the shelves for Bundy Rum and Gin and Vodka and glasses that I’ve purloined during my travels.
It’s bucketing down outside and plumbers, electricians and carpenters have lost interest in my little project as the city cops a hiding and everyone wants tradesmen to repair the rain damaged houses.
Bugger
I hate following the crowd but Movable Type was simply to attractive. The look was attractive but the technical knowledge required to handle the change was decidedly unattractive. Appeals to the better nature of Gary of gravett.org fame bore fruit and I am now forever in his debt…well at least until I can think of a suitable payback….thanks a lot, mate.
I will resume blogging, or should that be movable typing, later today.
Feeling unloved and unread – my infantry ego shattered – no-one was leaving any comments. Then I clicked on ‘comments’ and saw the message – the ‘free’ squawkbox software was only designed to sucker me in and once dependant on comments, like any junkie, I will pay willingly. I have done so and all will be back to normal in a day or two.
For those kind souls who will feel a need to tell me how to have ‘comments’ for nothing please wait till monday so I can start the week in a bad way.
Don’t you just love the idiots writing to the press saying things like “If you don’t want to pay extra road taxes don’t speed”, “speed kills” and “if you speed you’re an idiot.”
Speed doesn’t kill by itself. There are a lot of factors involved such as experience, the condition of the vehicle and tyres, the weather, other idiots on the road, fatigue, testosterone, alcohol,…the list goes on. But if you believe the politicians and police traffic spokesman speed is the killer. It’s a pity stats don’t back that up.
“Every K over is a killer’ just doesn’t cut it as a stand-alone stat and is very clearly an exercise in getting the driving population to accept fines from cameras and radar for minor infringements.
The only speed that kills is “inapproriate speed” and that can be possibly be defined as low as 20 kph in a 60 zone if any of the real killer factors are present. The young hoon drifting around the corner on drugs and two wheels near my quite suburban house is most probably only doing 20 kph but if anything happens he has no escape path – bang – a little kid is killed. That’s what the TV adds should concentrate on. My doing a 120 on a vacant four lane highway passing a semi in a 110 zone is as dangerous as my old golden retriever licking a burglar to death.
The State Government, in this case, Queensland, have TV adds that emotively suggest that travelling at 61 kph in a 60 zone is tantamount to homicidal driving. See the little child killed…see the grieving mother weep…every k over is a killer. No mention of speedos only being accurate to 10% and the driver can’t tell the difference between 60 and 66 kph – only what his speedo reads. `
On the highway behind the B-Double semi that’s doing 110 downhill and 90 uphill you will have to break the speed limit either uphill or down to pass him in a passing lane . It’s unsafe to stay behind as you can’t read the traffic far enough ahead for safe driving but the wowsers would have you stay behind the semi for the entire journey.
They’re the ones that are totally unaware of the traffic around them. So long as they watch their speedo and keep it under the posted limit then they are safe drivers and a warm glow suffuses their bodies after every righteous trip. But watch them on the dual highway doing 90 kph in the right lane alongside another vehicle and blocking ten or twenty people moving on as it’s a crime to speed and the limit is a 100 so why would you want to pass me and I’m actually unaware of the trafic behind me as the TV adds say every k over is a killer and I need to keep my eye on the speedo – not the trafic, not the people on the side of the road, not the body language of the driver in the vehicle in front….just the speedo.
These dropkicks cause accidents but because the role of traffic branch is balanced in favour of revenue from the “every k over is a killer campaign” slow and dangerous drivers don’t show on radar. The hoon around the corner inappropriately speeding at 20 kph doesn’t show either – he’s safe because it has to be a k over before he’s a killer.
Steve Bredhauer, the local Transport Minister quotes;
Total crashes on a stretch of the autobahn in Germany dropped from around 300 per year to fewer than 30 when speed cameras were introduced.
Fine, and your next point is? There must be another point because that stat alone says nothing. What were the limits on the autobahn before speed cameras. If my memory serves me right there was no limit This is the road system where Mercs, Alfas, Massaratis, and Porches drove at over 200 kph and have done so for decades. Driving at 200 kph is a different arguement and unsupportable because that is where speed can kill – not 110 kph in a 100 zone.
What to do. While the state governments are reaping millions from these cameras I can’t see them letting a cash cow go. I note in Victoria they are talking about, or already have, implimented laws that bring the speedo tolerance to 3 or 4%. That is to say doing 64 k in a 60 zone will cost you. How on earth do we reconcile this with the fact that Australian Design Standards only demand 10% accuracy in new car speedos. Maybe I’m being cynical but that smacks of revenue.
Even the dropkick drivers I referred to earlier in this post will be guilty of speeding. Or will they? No, they will simply drop their speed 10% to cover Gods rules on speeding and create more accidents.
Police presence on the road is what we should have. Irrational drivers, dangerously unsafe vehicles or dangerous road conditions never show on camera but a patrol can impact on these real killer factors. Of course the state coffers bean counters will tell the Police and Transport minister that patrols cost money and cameras make money making their decisions easy – go for the money.
For all you blokes having a bad day. Go look at this and remind yourself what it’s all
about – worth a laugh. From my daughter Liz
700 sheep stage a
protest against the treatment of their mates on the good ship MV Cormo Express.
Locals at Clifton, a Darling Downs town in Queensland, think it’s all about a Sheep Dog Trail coming up but impressed by the similarities of other protest marches lately lately I think they missed the point.
In other protests of similar intellect a loser in Britian pushed a peanut with his nose 11 km to protest against something or other.
Mark McGowan, a 37-year-old artist, arrives outside 10 Downing Street, in London Friday September 12, 2003. McGowan rolled the nut 11km using his nose as a protest against student fees. McGowan handed the nut over to Number 10, along with a letter asking Prime Minister Tony Blair to accept it as payment for his student debt.
Click here for a pic of the idiot
artist
And theres more. A peace activist attempted to pay a court fine with a check chiseled on a small tombstone Friday, as a protest at the number of civilians killed in the recent war in Iraq.
At least the cheque won’t ‘bounce’.
Thumbs up to the sheep at Clifton. There protest is pointless but then they make no claims of intellect.
Just when I was thinking Arnie had yet to graduate to speaking in whole paragraphs he enters a 76 day race for the governorship of the world 5th largest economy and wins. Today I note he has a BA in business and economics from Wisconson so maybe I need to look up the recipe for humble pie. Then…… I remembered that in my previous life, I considered BAs earned by subalterns as a ticket stating – this man has shown an ability to learn, conduct research and study and is therefore considered capable of learning his profession.
I resist the temptation to comment on Arnie’s groping in case some poor girl from my past has a flash back occassioned by repressed memory syndrome and trolls my site. (I wish)
With the quality of advise Arnie’s type of money can buy I’m sure it can work but the relevant point about the whole affair, to me at least, will be the sound of the squealing of California’s ‘we have been bloody robbed again’ left wing. Like El nino these harmonious sounds will burst across the Pacific and when they hit the Great Barrier Reef, slowed by the her bulk, will reverberate around the east coast giving me pleasure on an otherwise boring day.
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