State Budget

[Punk Rooster]

Electrification of the rail network (Phil G to do cart-wheels), Tram line extension down Port Rd (woo-hoo!), what else has come out of it?

[mighty_tiger_79]

first home owners grant goes up by $4k

[Wedgie]

Yeah great, have to pay more to catch a crowded bus from the south while areas that are already adequately covered and arent growing get more transport.
And State debt to blow out to 2 billion dollars which will once again require a Liberal government to come in and fix.
Who are the morons who voted these idiots with no idea in?

[Psyber]

Yeah great, have to pay more to catch a crowded bus from the south while areas that are already adequately covered and arent growing get more transport.
And State debt to blow out to 2 billion dollars which will once again require a Liberal government to come in and fix.
Who are the morons who voted these idiots with no idea in?

Oh they are doing that again - noting has changed then. I had assumed they were in surplus if they were undertaking these works.

[Leaping Lindner]

Yeah great, have to pay more to catch a crowded bus from the south while areas that are already adequately covered and arent growing get more transport.
And State debt to blow out to 2 billion dollars which will once again require a Liberal government to come in and fix.
Who are the morons who voted these idiots with no idea in?

Oh they are doing that again - noting has changed then. I had assumed they were in surplus if they were undertaking these works.

From The Advertiser editorial........

"As a starting point, the Budget predicts a healthy surplus of $160 million for 2008-09, rising to $424 million in 2011-12."

[Wedgie]

Yeah great, have to pay more to catch a crowded bus from the south while areas that are already adequately covered and arent growing get more transport.
And State debt to blow out to 2 billion dollars which will once again require a Liberal government to come in and fix.
Who are the morons who voted these idiots with no idea in?

Oh they are doing that again - noting has changed then. I had assumed they were in surplus if they were undertaking these works.

From The Advertiser editorial........

"As a starting point, the Budget predicts a healthy surplus of $160 million for 2008-09, rising to $424 million in 2011-12."

Also from the Advertiser and from Labor's own mouths and documents:

"State debt to rise from $82m now to $1.983 billion in 2012."

Looks like the same person who implements their policy and votes for them also does their calculations!

"Money for the infrastructure program will com from borrowings which will see the state's debt rise from around $82 million to $1.9 billion by 2012."

Obviously they don't take borrowings into account when working out their budget? I might take out a loan for a million dollars, spend 200k and tell the missus that our budget is 800k dollar in surplus.

[Squawk]

Does anyone else think this was an "insurance" budget?
Future expenditure and repayments on borrowings have just been heavily committed for the next 10 years. That means if Labor lose the next election, the Libs have limited flexibility to spend on their own initiatives. Interesting yet probably very politically astute.

[Hondo]

The surpluses (average per year of around $300-400m) for the next 5 years are from operating activities (tax revenue less expenses) - its like a profit and loss statement for each year

Borrowing money isn't part of the state's revenue - for the purposes of working out this surplus.

The debt is increasing because of the huge capital works -the State's assets are going up at the same time as its borrowings. Our average capital expenditure over the next 4 years is about 2-3 times then what it has been over the last 10.

How else do we pay for it all but to borrow, like anyone has to? If you don't want the debt then cancel some of the capital expenditure basically. Unfortunately the State is behind in its infrastructure spend because of all the years using surpluses to pay off the State Bank debt.

Good news is the asset to liabilities ratios are still OK so we keep our AAA credit rating.

[GWW]

The surpluses (average per year of around $300-400m) for the next 5 years are from operating activities (tax revenue less expenses) - its like a profit and loss statement for each year

Borrowing money isn't part of the state's revenue - for the purposes of working out this surplus.

The debt is increasing because of the huge capital works -the State's assets are going up at the same time as its borrowings. Our average capital expenditure over the next 4 years is about 2-3 times then what it has been over the last 10.

How else do we pay for it all but to borrow, like anyone has to? If you don't want the debt then cancel some of the capital expenditure basically. Unfortunately the State is behind in its infrastructure spend because of all the years using surpluses to pay off the State Bank debt.

Good news is the asset to liabilities ratios are still OK so we keep our AAA credit rating.

Well said Mr Rann

[Sojourner]

I understand that the problem with extending the train line to seaford is the cost of building the bridge over the Onkaparinga river because of the unstable nature of the land where the pylons need to be sunk into, apparently the cost of the engineering of such a bridge is significantly more that what it is costing to do the Anzac highway work and that is why the government do not want to look at doing it.

If that is true, what I cant work out is why they dont extend the line to Port Noarlunga and stay this side of the river? Something like that would surely be better than the nothing that they currently have?

[brod]

You'd think that Publuc Transport would be going north and south, major population growth areas. Im not guessing that we are going to have the same sort of growth west (except for that new suburb of Atlantis)

[Squawk]

or that they might re-open the line from Belair to Bridgewater or even as far as Mt Barker, given all the growth there since the Heysen Tunnels were put in.

[Sojourner]

or that they might re-open the line from Belair to Bridgewater or even as far as Mt Barker, given all the growth there since the Heysen Tunnels were put in.

The rumour is that they want to build a second line to Melbourne going around the back of the hills to free up space on the current line for passenger trains. As it stands the line has too much freight going up and down on the single rail sections to effectivley be able to programme trains.

I dont accept that though, I dont think it could be that hard to have two or three trains to go to and from Mt Barker in Peak Hour to do something positive to ease traffic congestion on the roads.

[mick]

As much as I detest Rann and his government, at least finally after 7 years some significant decisions have been made that could result in some benefit for the state. It is pretty clear that this requires State Bank disaster levels of borrowing, however as it is to build infrastructure, it can be justified. Rann and his colleagues have taken a punt, that the prosperity and income from the predicted mining boom will take care of this debt, I hope he's right, a world recession particularly in India and China could be the fly in the ointment. It's ironic that Rann and his party opposed the initial development at Roxby, which is the conerstone of our state's future, luckily there were a couple of courageous and visionary men in the ALP that crossed the floor, unfortunately our Premier was not one of them. I do feel particularly sorry for those people living in the North and South, although they will be getting electric trains, there are no new initiatives for public transport in either area.

[redden whites]

I dont accept that though, I dont think it could be that hard to have two or three trains to go to and from Mt Barker in Peak Hour to do something positive to ease traffic congestion on the roads.

Do you accept the fact that the Broad Gauge line stops at Belair thus making it impossible to continue any further Any dreams of rail services to the hills beyond Belair is dead and buried, pure and simple!

[Squawk]

I dont accept that though, I dont think it could be that hard to have two or three trains to go to and from Mt Barker in Peak Hour to do something positive to ease traffic congestion on the roads.

Do you accept the fact that the Broad Gauge line stops at Belair thus making it impossible to continue any further Any dreams of rail services to the hills beyond Belair is dead and buried, pure and simple!

so did they dig up the line from Belair to Bridgewater after they stopped that part of the service?

[redden whites]

I dont accept that though, I dont think it could be that hard to have two or three trains to go to and from Mt Barker in Peak Hour to do something positive to ease traffic congestion on the roads.

Do you accept the fact that the Broad Gauge line stops at Belair thus making it impossible to continue any further Any dreams of rail services to the hills beyond Belair is dead and buried, pure and simple!

so did they dig up the line from Belair to Bridgewater after they stopped that part of the service?

Its a different gauge now the Trans Adelaide Railcars are stranded at Belair .The ARTC owns the only line "East" of Belair and the Railcars don't fit on it.

[Squawk]

R&W - there were originally two rail lines. One was replaced with standard guage to enable freight to be moved by locos on a consistent national guage and so one broad guage line was sacrificed for this purpose. Originally, rail lines from Adelaide went through to the border (The Overland), to Mt Gambier (The Blueline) and to Victor Harbor (Steamranger for example).

About 15 years ago IIRC, metro rail services (which had gone through to Bridgewater) were ceased at Belair. I'm assuming that there is still a broad guage line as well as a standard guage line that runs through to Bridgewater at least - why would they did it up? Or was there only ever one broad guage rail line from Belair to Bridewater that has since been converted to standard guage?

You may be right because IIRC Steamranger services can no longer start or end in Adelaide.

Back to the original issue then - why don't they convert the existing rail line to Belair to standard guage as well, and then freight and metro services could co-exist beyond Belair with the necessary loops in place? And this right after they are currently removing redundant metro station platforms on the standard guage side of the line.

[redden whites]

Mate the same problem exists in the city.There is no standard guage line into Adelaide Railway stn only Keswick.Welcome to ADELAIDE.........as much as I hate to say it rail into the hills is over.
Then who would sit on the train for 1:40hr to Mount Barker now the tunnels are in anyway.

[Strawb]

righto the problem is simple when Adelaide Melbourne corridor was broad gauge all rail freight had to be changed in Melbourne at Dynon and in Adelaide at Islington. With the standard gauge we can run freight all over Australia. Victoria lost a fair few lines under Kennett and we are slowly getting these railways back. South Australia and Victoria should have went Standard gauge years ago but never did.