Imagine the impact on our quality of life if the Rudd Government had directed the economic stimulus package towards improving public transport as an alternative to our reliance on cars. A light rail link connecting the growth areas of the Macarthur region with the Macarthur Railway Station, improved rail capacity between Macarthur and the city with modern comfortable carriages, the completion of the South-West Rail link, and provision for heavy freight to be moved to rail would now be underway.
This would have been a responsible strategy in view of the adverse impact cars and trucks have on the environment.
But politics is politics and the Global Financial Crisis provided Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard with a unique opportunity to buy votes for their re-election this year. Consequently a massive $42 billion was spent in sending $900 cheques to anybody and everybody to spend on anything they wanted – mainly plasma television sets from China. Millions of dollars were sent to Australians living overseas. Every school in Australia was given a Julia Gillard Memorial Hall whether they needed one or not. A rorted pink-batt industry was created overnight.
Rudd’s plan to finance this reckless spending strategy was to borrow from the next generation.
This would not be a bad thing if the money had been invested in public infrastructure designed to support sustained economic development. Unfortunately Kevin Rudd is addicted to the same short-term populist strategy as former NSW Premier Bob Carr where the focus is on today’s media management rather than tomorrow’s demands for transport, health, education and business development.
There is no doubt that the car industry is an important sector within our economy. Any downturn that threatens employment in this area is sure to have significant negative impacts. Governments have a clear responsibility to provide protection by offering incentives to stimulate spending in such key areas.
But they also have a responsibility to ensure that the road networks are capable of handling the additional traffic generated by having more cars. The inability of the M5 to cope with today’s demands provides little hope the long suffering motorists from the Macarthur region in the future.
Many of these motorists would gladly opt for a public transport alternative however this in not possible where there are no services or where they are already overcrowded, dirty, insecure and unreliable.
In the early years of the Carr Labor Government a blueprint for Sydney’s transport infrastructure in 2010 was published. Unfortunately it stopped at Liverpool and Macarthur residents now live with that short-sighted neglect every day. Kevin Rudd’s ‘re-election stimulus package’ will have a similar detrimental effect on our next generation. It won’t affect Kev though – by then he will be a full-time junketeer on a United Nations gravy train.
