Voodoo Economics !

A very long time ago economic wisdom contended that the taxes we paid to the government provided the essential services that were unlikely to come from any other source.  The government owned the electricity generators and the poles and wires that brought electric power to our homes and businesses.  But the government was also responsible for roads and bridges, the railway system and a hug range of other services which were in need of repair and replacement.

New economic thinking suggested that if those poles and wires were sold - or leased - the billions generated would allow this backlog to be miraculously eliminated and we would get lower power bills.   We now find that the new owners have been to court and those provisions set into the legislation have been set aside.   It looks like the average family is abut to get an electricity price hike that will run to several hundred dollars more a year.

Now precisely the same voodoo economics is being suggested for the West Connex motorway.  The long suffering motorists of New South Wales have endured ever slower daily commutes and at last the city is building the road system of the future.  Widened roads and new tunnels, all paid for by the use of road tolls.  The work is underway and all this will be completed a few years into the future.

That same argument that applied to poles and wires is now being suggested for the West Connex. Selling the entire road system to a consortium would free up billions of dollars that would allow even more unrealised dreams to become a reality for residents of this state and city.   It seems that there are now movers and shakers advancing plans to sell West Connex in the construction stage and rosy dreams are emerging as to what the money will provide by way of a future utopia.

Of course, what it really means is that the original purpose of road tolls is to be abandoned - forever ! The original concept was to slap a toll on a section of road to provide the money for it to be widened and made capable of absorbing an enhanced traffic flow.  When the cost of the work was repaid by the toll, the toll was lifted.

That was exactly the principle applied to the F-6 motorway linking Waterfall and Wollongong.   Users remember that side excursion roads were banned, leaving Helensburgh reliant on the old Princes Highway and a one way toll was extracted at the toll gates at the Waterfall end of the motorway.   Years later - the cost recovered - the toll plaza was demolished and that charge eliminated.

It is probably wishful thinking to expect the government to ever give up such a wonderful cash cow as road tolls, but at least while they remain under government jurisdiction the threat at the ballot box will keep them moderate.   As we have just seen with electricity prices, when control is in the hands of others and the deciding factor is the courts the future is impossible to predict.

That old maxim - " Once bitten -twice shy  -   comers to mind !