As I’ve been reporting, after a two year almost-break from mass immigration (the government still quietly snuck 50,000 migrants in, in 2021, while nearly as many Australians were locked out), “Big Australia” is making a roaring comeback. Lazy, greedy big businesses and self-interested politicians are suddenly pounding the mass immigration drum for all they’re worth.
But, for all their huckstering about supposed economic benefits (which turn out, on closer examination, to be very much less than claimed), Big Australia fans rarely talk about the inconvenient stuff, like over-crowding, social cohesion, and especially infrastructure.
Infrastructure in Australia is in almost chronic crisis, from public health and housing, to roads. And it’s not just the Ardern government that’s hopeless at delivering on infrastructure projects.
It has been demonstrated on far too many occasions that state governments are hopeless at overseeing the construction of large infrastructure projects. Way over budget and massively delayed are typical features of many projects. (I’m not letting the federal government off the hook here, but it tends to provide funding rather than oversee projects directly.)
It should be no surprise that it’s Jacinda Ardern’s socialist bestie, Daniel Andrews, comes top of the class for bollixing infrastructure. Practically “Dictator Dan’s” first act as premier was to blow $1 billion of taxpayer’s money not to build a road. Yes, you read that right: Andrews cancelled the previous government’s contract to build the East West link, forking over a cool billion in compo.
Don’t mistake that for fiscal rectitude: with the next stroke of his pen, Andrews splurged billions more on a massive infrastructure spree, including the West Gate Tunnel. I’m sure you’ll be as surprised as I am to learn that the project is years behind and nearly $6 billion over budget.
Those billions are a river of gold for toll road operator Transurban — the same firm that Andrews’ Labor party spent years screaming about, when Jeff Kennett was paying them vast sums of taxpayer money to build toll roads and bridges.
The Regional Rail project undertaken in Victoria was a similar fiasco. The light rail project in Sydney was over budget and over time. Upgrades to various highways have also been beset with problems.
BFD readers no doubt have a thing or two to say about light rail — the gift that just keeps on giving to incompetent left-wing governments (a tautology?).
It is also not just an Australian problem. The high-speed train project in California was finally terminated before completion in the face of substantial cost blowouts and unresolved impediments to project completion. The HS2 project in the UK – another high-speed train project – is riddled with rapidly escalating costs and delays. Some parts of the proposed routes have been scrapped.
All this begs the question of why there are so many problems associated with large infrastructure projects.
The Australian
Ooh, ooh, I know the answer to that one! Hint: starts with G, ends with T. 10 letters, three syllables. Anyone?
Ronald Reagan was right.