Thursday 28th of March 2024

helping reduce carbon emissions by doing less...

cormann

Infrastructure is the latest area of Morrison Government incompetence exposed by fresh data from the Bureau of Statistics. Alan Austin reports.

WHEN HISTORIANS survey the damage done to Australia’s economic, social and physical environment by arguably the least competent government in the Westminster world since the Second World War, infrastructure failure will be high on their list. This area of mismanagement has been one of the most destructive. And most hypocritical.

Serious spending slump

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed us last week that total investment by all state and federal governments in construction projects for the full financial year 2018-19 was just $46.1 billion. That might seem okay at a glance. But it isn’t.
Remember, the world is now in its fifth year of an extraordinary upswing in international investment and commerce. This is in dramatic contrast to the global recession which devastated the world from 2008 to 2012.

So infrastructure spending last financial year should have broken all records. This could have been the year which fixed congestion on Australia’s capital city roads, trains, trams and buses, once and for all.

The opposite has happened. Infrastructure spending declined last year. Public transport stress worsened. So did the condition of bridges, reservoirs, regional airports, railway stations, remote housing and other vital infrastructure.

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/coalition-hyp...

 

 

retaining water...

A billion-dollar package to upgrade or build new dams in drought-afflicted NSW regions is expected to put "bulldozers in the ground" next year, the Liberal-National coalition has said.

Key points:
  • The projects were expected to begin in 2020 and be completed by 2025
  • On Thursday, the NSW Government signalled it would fast-track applications to reduce delays
  • An environmental group has slammed the idea of accelerated applications for the projects

 

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Sunday announced a joint investment between the federal and state governments for "priority large-scale water infrastructure projects".

Up to $650 million has been flagged to upgrade the Wyangala Dam in the state's central west and $480 million will go to the new Dungowan Dam near Tamworth.

The Wyangala upgrade includes raising the dam wall by 10 metres and Dungowan will be the first new dam in NSW for more than 30 years.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-13/dam-package-wyangala-and-dungowan...

 

What this does not tell you is that there are no impact valuation of the projects and that MOST OF THE CASH will go to private enterprise with little checks and balances...