The WestConnex motorway would be scrapped and there would be no work on another harbour rail crossing for five years under the Greens' transport policy.

The party would instead spend the money on a rail line between Epping and Parramatta, at least three new light rail routes, new trains for Newcastle and the Central Coast, and reducing fares on Sydney's Airport Line.

Releasing her party's five-year transport plan on Tuesday, Greens spokeswoman Mehreen Faruqi said the policy aimed to "end the dominance of 1950s-style transport planning."

"We're a smart community, the people of NSW know the amount of money being spent on private toll roads and white-elephant thought bubbles like the WestConnex could be used to create a transport system that works for all of us," Dr Faruqi said.

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-state-election-2015-greens-would-scrap-wes...

See also: 

jam

and

joining dots with more traffic jams on a map might give us a sense of achievement but in the end it's destructively ugly...

Tony Abbott is yet to answer queries or comment on the details surrounding ICAC revelations concerning the Warringah Club and its less than transparent approach to dealing with donations to his campaign.

Mike Baird has also refused to answer questions in Parliament regarding undeclared donations from companies associated with developer Roger Massy-Greene that came shortly before Baird gave Massy-Greene  a lucrative consulting contract and a plum board appointment.

On top of this, we have a guy implicated in all manner of dodgy goings on at council, who allegedly gave a now disgraced Liberal MP donation cheques to launder through a trust account and slush fund — cheques not even made out to him that were, incredibly, said to have come from backpackers.

And this guy, John Caputo, is a central plank in the campaign fundraising efforts of both our prime minister and the NSW premier.

If there is one thing that is clear, it is that the campaign donation records of both Abbott and Baird need to be gone through with a fine tooth auditor’s comb.

It seems ironic that Abbott and Coy have set up a Royal Commission into unions in a desperate attempt to smear the Labor Party and the union movement and find hidden illegal slush funds.

Meanwhile, ICAC is finding Liberal Party slush funds all over the place and is fast showing the current Liberal Party to be one of the most corrupt political party ever seen in Australia’s political and criminal history.

Let us not also forget that Abbott has form with slush funds and that they are not always set up for campaign purposes — sometimes they are about political assassinations.

Australia’s most notorious slush fund was a fund run by Tony Abbott himself and was set up to destroy the One Nation Party and Pauline Hanson. Abbott sought to deny the country the democratic process by killing off One Nation and denying us the chance to vote against them.

ICAC and Caputo: Abbott and Baird's Manly problem

The gridlock caused by a multi-vehicle pile-up on Sydney Harbour Bridge this morning highlights the problem with the city's traffic congestion, the New South Wales Premier says.

In the wake of this morning's peak-hour traffic chaos, Premier Mike Baird promised the State Government would spend an extra $300 million over the next 10 years to ease traffic problem areas in Sydney's south.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-25/harbour-bridge-gridlock-proof-of-c...

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Hello? Anyone in the media listening?... For starters, Mike the nice bloke Baird wants to build the 1950s WesCONnex to the tune of many $ BILLIONS that will destroy old Sydney suburbs and increase the traffic ten-fold, by cramming more people in high density buildings along the route... A loopy idiotic construction project with benefits only for DEVELOPERS. Then Mike the nice bloke Baird wants to spend — is it extra or part of the WestCONnex project? — 300 millions to ease traffic in the south, OVER TEN YEARS...

Er excuse me, this is about 30 million extra to displace a couple of traffic jams 500 metres from their present location, all without taking into account that within ten years, THERE WILL BE TWICE AS MANY CARS ON THE ROADS, unless public transport is improved 100 fold... Mike the nice bloke is being "virile in the wind" if you pardon this expression adapted from the Knox College motto...

And by the way the traffic problem WAS ON THE BRIDGE... not in Sydney's south...

Sydney's Powerhouse Museum will be moved to Parramatta, in the city's west, if the Coalition Government is re-elected next month.

The proposal is part of a wider plan to inject $30 million over the next four years to develop an art and culture precinct in the west.

New South Wales Premier Mike Baird said the existing museum building at Ultimo would be sold to developers.

"That [site] will be used for urban renewal," he said.

"That will be sold as part of this and every single dollar of that will go towards this new museum.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-26/sydney-powerhouse-museum-move-parr...

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Another project designed to destroy what has worked well and inspired a lot of people. Another sold out public asset to feed the hordes of Liberal (CONservative) supporting developers. This may not be corrupt, but the spirit of the sale of such PUBLIC ASSETS is totally corrupt. MAD actually. Stop Baird's madness in selling Sydney's public assets to "developers", centre, right and far right... IDIOTIC. A pledge of "every single dollar going to a new museum in the Parramatta region?... Build ANOTHER damn thing in Parramatta if you will but PLEASE leave the ph2 alone...

URBAN RENEWAL? Bullshit wrapped up in synthetic semantics...

Mr Baird started cracking up at another tweet, which suggested he was the devil.

"Mike Baird, I knew you were in Newcastle yesterday coz I could smell the stench of sulfur coming from your pitchfork from over 10 miles away," he read, breaking into laughter.

"This guy should be a writer. I like that. That's actually quite clever," he says.

He appeared confused about a tweet that said he hated Justin Bieber.

"Yeah, of course I hate Justin Bieber. Who doesn't hate Justin Bieber?"

read more

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-premier-mike-baird-reads-mean-tweets-on-youtube-20150226-13q45c.html

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Meanwhile the "nice" guy is selling your public assets from under your feet... Very clever and devilish... Vote him out .... young punks...

An American music label appears unimpressed with NSW Premier Mike Baird's take on US talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, forcing a YouTube video of him reading mean tweets to be taken offline.

Mr Baird showed his comic side on Thursday after posting a YouTube video of himself reading his Twitter hate mail, a take-off of Kimmel's popular videos.

But music publisher Warner Chappell has since taken down the clip citing "copyright claims".

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-state-election-2015/mike-baird-twitter-video-pulled-from-youtube-after-copyright-claims-20150226-13qamq.html

How dumb is that?... trying to look cool to the young twits while selling their public assets from under their feet while they laugh their heads off...? Sneaky... Get rid of Mike Baird and his mate Tony Turdy. 

The New South Wales Coalition is fending off claims that the real profitability of the Government's electricity assets is being hidden, as it looks to privatise the industry's infrastructure.

The claims were made in a briefing paper prepared by Bob Walker, Emeritus Professor at the University of Sydney's Business School.

The Coalition has made electricity privatisation a key plank of its re-election campaign.

Premier Mike Baird said it would allow for the creation of a $20 million fund that can be used for vital infrastructure across the state.

But Professor Walker said in 2012-13 Treasury changed the way it calculated the value of assets held by Ausgrid and Endeavour Energy, making them appear less profitable on paper.

"Public sector accounting in New South Wales is rather unusual," he said.

"If we converted their financial results on a private sector accounting basis, the sort of accounting techniques that are used by listed industrial companies, we'd see that they were far more profitable than reported.

"The reason is a bit technical, but I calculate that two of the agencies, Ausgrid and Endeavour Energy are in fact earning returns on shareholders' equity of between 80 and 82 per cent per annum, which is just a stunning super-profit."

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-27/true-value-of-nsw-electricity-assets-being-hidden-by-coalition/6268422

Gus: Imagine. You sell assets for 20 billions. Imagine these assets give you returns of about 15 billions per annum. Someone on the pavement wants to buy your assets — obviously. Within two years, they recoup the outlay and make 7.5 billion extra. Cool. One could suggest of course that buyers are pressuring the sale, of course. But when the sellers of YOUR GOODS (the Liberal — CONservative government which you did not ask to sell YOUR GOODS) are also "good friends with the buyers", one can and SHOULD ask questions.

In the past few years, the cost of electricity went up to more or less double of what it should be. Nothing to do with renewable, something largely to do with upping the value of posts and wires... WHICH WE CONSUMERS ALREADY PAID FOR.  But someone else is going to cash in and POSSIBLY CHARGE MORE for your electrical privilege. Looking around, by selling YOUR assets, you get stuffed for the rest of your life. This is what Baird and his government of swiftIES wants to do — possible so their good rich mates can cash in on the deal... Corrupt? What is corruption? Someone profiting at your expense or some cash going under the table? You work it out...

The closer we get to the March 28 election, it seems the faster concerns are rising about Premier Mike Baird's grand plan to partially privatise NSW electricity distribution and transmission businesses – the "poles and wires".

Some of it is political and therefore highly likely to be opportunistic. Take this week's announcement by the Christian Democratic Party's Fred Nile who has declared he wants guarantees that power workers will retain their existing conditions and not lose their jobs for five years.

Nile's position follows the even more strident position of the Shooters and Fishers party, which last year said it would never support the plan, under any circumstances and would not enter into deals to pass legislation to facilitate it.

The parties share the balance of power in the NSW upper house and are battling to get enough votes to do so in the new parliament elected next month. They have sniffed the winds of discontent early. A lot hangs on their attitudes if Baird wins the election.

But for Baird and the Coalition, the positions of the minor parties in the upper house will be very much a secondary consideration given the view fast taking hold in the electorate.

The recent Fairfax/Ipsos poll showed that even with Baird's promise to spend all the proceeds on $20 billion worth of infrastructure, the policy remains a dog. It showed 46 percent of voters remain opposed with only 47 percent in support.

That was a eight per cent fall in support after Baird outlined the $20 billion infrastructure plan he says will be funded by the proceeds in November.

That was alarming enough for the government, but a Galaxy poll this week would have left Coalition MPs sick to the stomach.

It asked voters if they would prefer paying for new infrastructure through the partial power privatisation or increased taxes.

Incredibly, the highest proportion – 35 percent – opted for a tax increase compared with 26 per cent who nominated privatisation.

The same poll had the government lead over the opposition tightening to 53-47 on a two party preferred basis.

It seems the polls are indeed tightening as voters begin to pay closer attention to Baird's unpopular proposition.

read also: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/no-plan-b-did-mike-baird-just-hand-labor-the-campaign-line-it-was-looking-for-20150227-13qyhc.html