Kosky’s time in the public transport portfolio has not been a happy one, and her departure will undoubtedly be handy for the government. Victoria’s public transport system, particularly the train system, has failed to cope with a big increase in passenger numbers. Nor could it cope with extreme weather; on the increasingly common 40 degree days down here in Melbourne, massive disruptions in the train system have become routine due to limitations with train air conditioning systems, buckling rails, and sagging wires. To top it off, the myki smartcard ticketing system is three years late, way over budget, and its tentative and partial introduction still isn’t working properly.

But how much is Kosky herself to blame for all of this?

The Age‘s Clay Lucas examines Kosky’s performance as Transport Minister and quotes a number of anonymous sources as being unimpressed with her understanding of the transport portfolio, indicating that she was unable to discern poor information from bureaucrats and take effective decisions, contrasting her unfavourably with her predecessor in the position, Peter Batchelor.

However, when it comes down to it, the major reasons why Melbourne’s public transport system is under pressure – underinvestment in rolling stock and lines, the unwieldy profusion of separate companies holding contracts for various parts of the operation (which are now unified in the new contract with Metro Trains), and the loopy decision to sign a contract for a very large, very complex ticketing system with a company that had never built a ticketing system before – were all made under Batchelor’s watch, and presumably with the influence of then-Treasurer Brumby. The large dollops of infrastructure to fix the underinvestment, by contrast, got under way in Kosky’s tenure, even if it will be years before they are completed.

Paul Mees critiques Kosky’s performance from another angle – the continuation of the franchise model, rather than an integrated, accountable public transport authority. But any such major reforms would have to be taken by Cabinet anyway.

So does Kosky deserve her public image? And how do you fairly assess the substantive performance of individual ministers, given that despite all the issues supposedly troubling the Brumby government they’re still way ahead in the polls?

I totally reject the sort of intellectual superiority of some “planning experts” that would dictate an inflexible planning solution. People deserve choice. If they want to live in tram-track suburbs, good planning gives them the choice to do that. If growing suburbs on the fringe of the city meet their needs, then there must be appropriate supply. Too often the debate is hijacked either by a cultural snobbery against growth suburbs on the city fringe, or a self-serving not-in-my-backyard-ism against development in established areas.

I’m all for an honest and continuing debate about how best to manage Melbourne and Victoria’s growth. But I won’t stand for cultural snobbery and NIMBY-ism being dressed up as public debate.

There is undoubtedly an element of truth to Madden’s critique – there is a considerable element of NIMBYism in the opposition to suburban infill development, and at least some inner-suburbanites like myself do regard the “growth suburbs” as a bit of a cultural desert that we couldn’t imagine living in. But – aside from the question as to whether NIMBYs do in fact deserve some consideration in preserving the way of life they want, just as the outer-suburbanites who want the McMansion and two big cars do – in his cultural swipes Madden ignores the more substantive critiques of the government’s half-hearted approach to urban planning.

Whether he likes it or not, those “growth suburbs” are eating away at more and more land on Melbourne’s western fringes, some of which were previously native grasslands – a not particularly sexy, but important and threatened ecosystem. The surburbs themselves, despite slightly increased urban density compared to the middle-ring suburbs of the 1950s, are too spread-out to support decent public transport. Furthermore, as well as being inherently hard to support with public transport, the developers don’t tend to design them to be cycleable or walkable, so even for relatively short local journeys people pile into the Prado – drop the kids off, pop down to the shops, you name it. Not to mention the environmental costs of heating, cooling, lighting, and to some extent watering the McMansions that result from continuing land releases – ever-improving efficiency standards keep losing to ever-increasing house sizes, despite shrinking family sizes.

If Madden wants to make his case, he might consider actually responding to the more substantial critiques of the government’s policy, rather than an easy slam against inner-suburban yuppies like myself.

At times in our history the government of Queensland has sold beer, sawn and milled timber, retailed fish and even had 90 state owned butcher shops.

In Brisbane, our electricity network wasn’t state owned until 1977. And we didn’t own power stations until then either.

We’ve always owned a railway, but never owned a communications company. While we’ve retailed fish and meat, we’ve never been greengrocers.

So Bligh is arguing that what states own over time changes, and changed circumstances require decisions about what assets a state should own and what trading enterprises a state should be involved in.

She was actually quite articulate and even eloquent in the several times I’ve heard her on local ABC radio. And the speech in parliament is not bad at all. It’s just that people don’t listen. As soon as the interview ended callers, probably about 3 to one, rang in expressing visceral displeasure in no uncertain terms.

So the politics is lousy. But will we, as Bligh suggests and no doubt hopes, come to see the wisdom in the long run?

Contrary to comment on the earlier thread Bligh said on radio that they would keep the enterprises that paid a good dividend. Indeed in the speech she says:

The Government will forgo annual estimated returns of approximately $280 million as a result of the sale program which represents a return on investment of less than 2%.

Also these particular operations require new capital:

However the $12 Billion in avoided capital will save Queensland around $750 million every year in interest.

But later in the speech she says:

Paying off our debt faster is like paying off a home faster – this measure alone means we will save almost $300 million in interest payments over the next four years. (Emphasis added)

What’s that? $300 million over four years? Something doesn’t add up.

Moreover, even though private enterprise might need to invest that $12 billion, I don’t see how she can guarantee that they will. But if they do, those enterprises will need to service the capital and earn a decent, respectable return, otherwise it would be their fiduciary duty to their shareholders to invest somewhere else. $750 million interest on $12 billion borrowing means an interest rate of 6.25%. I imagine capitalists would want a return on investment of at least double that rate. So prices will go up.

So the whole thing doesn’t make sense to me. Looks like window dressing, stemming from pnic and desperation. In this the Federal Opposition, with its endless banging on about $300 billion of debt and its pursuit of the ‘Beazley black hole’ meme when in government, has made sensible public policy almost impossible.

The interest payments on the projected Commonwealth debt are forecast to top out in a few years time at $7 billion pa. That is 2.4% of Government receipts (not outlays) in the 2009-10 budget. Given the Opposition’s fondness for domestic analogies, who would be troubled by a house mortgage with repayments 2.4% of current after-tax income?

Meanwhile Bligh expected opposition to her privatisation plan to be “instinctive”. She’s not wrong and it seems there will be a backlash from the unions, and no doubt the party conference on the weekend.

In the AFR yesterday Qld ALP State president and AMWU Secretay Andrew Dettmar said the asset sale was “tragic”.

“I don’t think there’s anybody who can pretend to be happy about this,” he said. “Over 100 years of public policy is going to be disposed of inside the life of this parliament. I think that is tragic for Queensland.”

At a rough guess the unions at the time would have opposed the disposal of the 90 state butcher shops. However, that doesn’t alter the politics right now.

There has been masses of coverage in the local paper under the heading Queensland for sale.

Dettmar says the asset sales will leave the likes of Rio and BHP Billiton effectively in charge of regional economies, from pit to port.

I’m reminded of the last days of the Goss government, which seemed to be determined to upset everybody. To increase the range of upset citizens Bligh put forward in the same speech the intention to cease what has become known as the fuel subsidy. As this RACQ document shows it is actually not a subsidy at all:

The Queensland Fuel Subsidy Scheme was established in 1997 to offset the effective application in Queensland of a Commonwealth administered, state tax on petrol and diesel fuel. At present, the scheme reduces taxation of petrol and diesel fuel by 9.189 cents per litre, comprising a direct tax offset of 8.354 cents per litre and a GST saving of 0.835 cents per litre.

So Queensland is not saving $600 million pa, it’s getting $600 million in a new tax, albeit one that is already in vogue in the rest of Australia.

That subterfuge aside, most of the commentariat have simply said the the removal of the “subsidy” is good policy without saying why. I suspect that the price increase will only affect consumption marginally. The transport industry, already on low margins, will have margins squeezed further or will have to pass on the cost which will feed into the economy generally. Farmers and horticulturalists who use a lot of fuel will be also squeezed when making a crust is already difficult. Motorists generally are likely to spend less in other discretionary areas rather than consume less fuel. Without a concommitant effort to upgrade public transport they are unlikely to forsake their vehicles to any great extent.

So more grief for marginal environmental gain.

Bligh strikes me as being quite stubborn, she might term it “steadfast”, so I expect the general outcry will have no effect. But she will find her newly badged “Renewing Queensland Plan” hard to sell.

Update: Elsewhere at Quiggin.

Bligh seems to be assuming that selling the freight business will be less unpopular than privatising passenger rail. Maybe, maybe not. The unions are certainly unhappy. But hiving off the profitable bits of QR is just nuts. Aside from the economies of scale that will be lost, the lack of a cross-subsidy for public transport will cause immense problems further down the track. That will be compounded by the government’s quick return to an aversion to public spending, which is a complete backflip from its winning electoral message.

Queensland Labor never previously went down the privatisation track favoured in other states. Peter Beattie was happy to retain some fat in QR over a period of years to cushion the impact of restructuring on jobs. There’s also previously been a perception that diseconomies would result from selling off profitable bits of public assets in such a geographically huge state with such a dispersed population. Cross-subsidy is the only model that works for public services in this state.

The Nats knew this as well, which is why the short lived Borbidge government never adopted the 90s fashion for privatisation.

This is a decision for the South-East corner, and for business elites.

The politics of this, as well, are just dumb.

And then there’s the fact that – as with most privatisations – the taxpayer will be no doubt dudded, as public assets built up over more than a century are flogged off at the height of an economic downturn.

Not happy, Anna.

Elsewhere: John Quiggin.

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/griffith-review-xmas-party-08-002.jpg"

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/griffith-review-xmas-party-08-003-1.jpg"http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/12/17/open-christmas-season-atrocities-thread/

Early media reports note that some sections of Victoria have been “damaged beyond repair”. I am surprised that this is news to anyone, but I suppose it’s worth repeating.

There’s lots to chew through in the report, and I’d imagine that there are various aspects that various LP’ers might want to quibble about (to pick one, I don’t think the use of “ecological footprint” is terribly helpful, as it gives very little indication of what aspects of our lifestyles are unsustainable, and contains a lot of assumptions which have value judgements embedded in them). But there was another interesting little statistic from the section on energy and transport in Chapter 3 that caught my eye: “Based on full fuel cycle greenhouse gas emissions factors and average occupancy rates, passenger cars emit 0.213 kg of CO2-e per person-kilometre travelled, compared with 0.145 kg CO2-e/PKT for trains, 0.158 kg CO2-e/PKT for trams and 0.159 kg CO2-e/PKT for buses”.

I am slightly surprised, but it seems that replacing Commodores with trams is not nearly as big a win for the global environment as might be hoped, at least until Hazelwood and Loy Yang stop belching CO2 into the air.

The said policy is an amalgam of the undercosted, weird (extra carriages on trains which won’t fit on the station) and possibly unfeasible, according to the government. But in the grand tradition of governments, Labor are claiming they were already thinking of the most apparently popular bit of the Borg’s train agenda, and may well steal it, but they wouldn’t be doing that because they were already… etc. The neatness of this trick is that the government can actually do something about what the opposition can only talk about, and at the same time it provides some dangerous incentives for the LNP to remain a policy free zone.

But, leaving aside the politics for a moment, The Borg’s initative is to have free fares for early and late commuters heading to and from the CBD by rail – from 6am to 7am and from 6pm to 7pm. The idea – supposed to reduce overcrowding on peak hour trains – is said to have been borrowed from a Melbourne iniative, which is what Labor are now saying they’ve been looking at for some time. Any Melbs folks care to tell us Quincelanders how it’s worked out in practice?

Getting back to the politics, Springborg combined his announcement with the launch of his own new form of transport – a campaign bus called “The Borg Express”. The visuals suggest part of his problem – the very self-centred (or if you prefer, leadership focused) nature of his campaign. I haven’t seen any qualitative polling on this, but I’d strongly suspect the LNP doesn’t have much of a brand, and the worst of both the Libs and the Nats might be haunting its image. The Borg has a lot riding on his own self-presentation, and the LNP must be hoping all the eggs in this particular basket don’t break as The Borg Express wends its way around.

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/borg-express.jpg"

Here are some images licenced under Creative Commons from flickr. Two aren’t actually of the most recent storms, but for those who aren’t used to a classic Brisbane storm, they might provide a bit of a lightning flash of illumination. Over at Circulating Library, there are also some contemporary photos to look at. Taking photos might be a tad risky, actually, as one of the two deaths from the storms has been a young man who unwisely tried to photograph a stormwater drain at Chermside on Sunday night. Via Stilgherrian, you can also have a squizzy at archived radar images of last night’s storms here. When I checked at around 5pm it was impossible to get on to the BOM site to check tonight’s storms on their way, and the site also couldn’t cope with the traffic just after the ABC weather at the end of the news.

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/brisbane-storm-1.jpg"

courtesy of Garry’

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/brisbane-storm-2.jpg"

courtesy of supernicko

<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/brisbane-storm-3.jpg"

courtesy of Michael Henderson

We’ve been fairly lucky here at New Farm – although getting off the bus just before I experienced the hail and the alarums and the torrential downpour and the water rushing down the streets first hand. Things have been fairly tough for folks in The Gap and now Paddington and some of the other Western suburbs, and other parts of South East Queensland, particularly around Ipswich where the Bremer River is at levels not seen since the 1974 floods. Most people I talked to today had a story about the downpour that hit at around 1am last night, and a lot of people seem to have slept very badly… but certainly one of the outcomes of these sort of events is a little more chatting to and smiling at people in the neighbourhood than happens routinely.

The authorities appear to have been responding well – much better in many ways than the last (isolated) freak storm in 2004. But given the flooding of the inner city bypass tunnel and also the closure due to flooding of the King George Square bus station this morning which had me and a friend hiking up to Roma Street station to get the bus to CI at QUT, Campbell Newman might like to reconsider the tunnel obsession. Contingency plans for transport don’t appear to have been ideal, and again – I’m as little of an engineer as I am a climatologist, but you do have to wonder whether the design of recent transport infrastructure really anticipated what occurs when heavy rain falls. It might not happen with the rather ominous regularity and intensity we’ve seen over the last few days and nights, but we are in the subtropics after all. My flatmate and I were just discussing how well our building – put up as were so many New Farm apartment houses in the 1960s by Italians – has coped. We’re of the view that the garages would have been flooded had it not for basically very well thought out design.

There are no doubt tons of links and stories around, but I’d be very interested in local people’s stories, and any photos and personal blogs people might have seen or written. Anyway, fingers crossed that if we are hit by another wave of water late tonight, it doesn’t add too much to the wreckage and destruction a lot of people are already coping with.