Yesterday’s press release was quoted in The Age article Pay Up: Grand Plan to get big projects built. After quoting the soft option of tolling drivers, which has failed spectacularly as a financing mechanism in NSW and QLD, the article…
Media Release “The Andrews government has lost no time putting its stamp on the future shape of Melbourne, funding the planning stage of the Melbourne Metro Rail tunnel – while fretting about the $9 billion cost. “Victoria can fund this…
Last night’s Melbourne Transport Super Forum featuring Minister Terry Mulden, the ALP’s Jill Hennessy and the Green’s Greg Barber was as packed as a Melbourne train with policy wonks and advocates. The presentations were dominated by the usual point scoring.…
Cross posted from The Conversation By Chris Hale Public transport has a problem with money. Campaigners often argue that mass transit is a public good in its own right, and hence should be very cheap or even free. Mainstream media…
The Property Council of Australia is ‘vehemently opposed’ to Canberra’s special land levy to part-fund the $600 million light rail project from Gungahlin to the city, calling it “just another property tax in disguise”.
There’s only one reason we have devastating house price booms and busts – the pre marker to any recession and economic disaster, and that is speculation induced in this case, through the privatisation of unearned gains.
The continual reinforcement that new infrastructure can only financed by privatising the last remaining public assets is worth challenging. According to Infrastructure Australia and Joe Hockey, a fire sale here or there is all that is required for a mere…
In an extraordinary outburst, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute has today embraced planning constraints on urban subdivision, elevating ‘developer certainty’ over the risk – heaven forbid! – of oversupply. I kid you not. “While it is almost…
The new Liberal Federal government has boldly declared themselves the ‘infrastructure government’. This infers they have a method to finance the backlog of infrastructure demanded. Tapping superannuation as the source of cheap finance has been the proposed path forward. We…
The Herald Sun reports research by PRD Nationwide showing that on average, across all Melbourne suburbs, the presence of a railway station in a suburb adds about $48,000 to the value of the median “house” in the suburb. This average rises…