Australia’s big dreams need a reality check

When it comes to dreams and ideas we can’t let go of, Australians have blind spots everywhere, writes Dan Petrie

Every great Australian dream begins with a dreamer unafraid of championing even the most outlandish of ideas.

Abolish the states, a fast train to run along the east coast of Australia, water from the Ord River in Western Australia to solve the Murray Darling flow, populating the Northern part of the continent and my personal favourite, filling Lake Eyre with sea water — when it comes to dreams and ideas we can’t let go of, Australians have blind spots everywhere.

A reasonable observation of the three tiered local-state-federal system lends itself to the obvious criticism that Australians are over governed and abolishing the state level has been argued most forcefully by former prime minister, the late Robert Hawke.

The streamlining of government in this country is rooted firmly in the view that states just have to go.

Example of a train the Coalition would use on its high speed rail line.

Much is written of Hawke’s larrikin attitude, but as an intellect and a reformer, his record is unquestioned. Hawke first strongly advocated his abolitionist position in 1979 via the ABC’s Boyer lectures.

The cost savings of such a proposition has been modelled by economists and researchers, although University of Canberra’s Mark Drummond’s data point of $20 billion in annual savings first written about in 2002 is often promoted as ‘the figure.’

To return to Hawke, the dream is constitutionally almost impossible but if anything, 1979 was quite the year for announcing big ideas.

It was in December 1979 at the Premier’s Conference that the feasibility study into building a high-speed train operating between Sydney and Melbourne was first conceived.

Without fail, the dream of the fast train makes it way into the electoral cycle as part of building a nation for the future! (cue Prince Charles, ‘whatever that means.’)

The most recent fast train price tag of A$120 billion came from a $20 million feasibility study authorised by former Rudd-Gillard-Rudd infrastructure minister and now Federal opposition leader, Anthony ‘Albo’ Albanese.

The New Bradfield Scheme.

Albo would be more easily satisfied by building a scaled-down version at a Lego conference to satisfy his infrastructure lust as opposed to the full size version where the tunnelling required for such a project is conceivably a bridge too far.

The rail dream is far too costly, uneconomical and more likely to succeed in areas such as southeast Queensland, Gosford-Sydney-Wollongong and Melbourne-Bendigo via delivery of the proposed City Deals arrangements being promoted by local government associations nationally.

City Deal agreements align Federal-State and Local governments on key infrastructure projects where the South East Queensland’s Council of Lord Mayors offers the best hope for the fast dream train in this country.

Mind you, even in Japan, it is the shopping centres that sit atop the train stations of the country’s high-speed network that are the revenue generators for that’s country’s train corporations. Yep, even in the Land of the Rising Sun where the distances are small compared to Australia, bullet trains are expensive to run and maintain.

If a localised solution realises Australia’s fast train dream then let’s just hope the states can agree on the gauge!

Modern Fast Train in Motion.

On government efficiency and rail ambition, it is a tough reality to wake up to but that has not stopped us dreaming about other obsession, how we hydrate this brown land of ours.

Water projects from the new Bradfield Scheme at $20 billion to an 1800-mile pipe network from Western Australia’s Ord River to save the ailing Murray Darling River system at $10 billion are both dwarfed by proposal to fill up Lake Eyre with sea water. No, I will not offer an estimate on that one!

Apart from evaporation, mass environment impacts and cost, water solutions in this country remain the dreams for many.

A variant on the Bradfield scheme is the most likely of water infrastructure projects to succeed and would certainly help to add some further population in the northern part of the state.

So, while there is nothing wrong with dreaming big, delivering such dreams can turn into nightmares if not done properly.

Dan Petrie is the Chief Information Officer of data analytics firm, Grafa and a former Economic Data Editor at Bloomberg LP who also goes by the name of Data Dan – do you have a data question? Email [e-mail]