Budget Fed/NSW Blues

UPDATE on 16 June 2022

The ALP victory in the May ’22 election poses a few challenges, one if to repair the damage described below and another to clean out the stables fo performance improves as necessary i.e. dramatically

Josh Frydenberg has lost the plot, his Budget and MYEFOs bear no resemblance to relevant planning, management or “nation building” criteria. See https://sydneyimprovementpolitics.com/

A wise American journalist has concluded, about a context that we know well – including the complete disconnect between infrastructure planning and intergenerational equity – that

It is now widely understood that famines arise from local political failures in the trade and distribution of abundant global food supplies, not from local crop failures. And floods devastate communities not because the local rivers are unusually watery but because poor zoning and subsidised flood insurance encourage people to build their homes on floodplains.

Those same politicians already have made decisions that may seal a country’s coronavirus fate, and it won’t have anything to do with quarantines or restrictions on travel or large gatherings. Rather, the important choices may have already come in the guise of technocratic health spending and investment decisions that were made largely out of public view over many years.

Sydney MetroMania and Politico-Economic Defoulement

The purpose of “Save Sydney” and sydneyimprovementpolitics.com is to have accepted an “improvement” philosophy and methodology by Federal and State Governments, in emulation of the great reform processes of Sydney between 1900 and 1912 to `32, and Newcastle in 1997-98. The Governments’ approach is an increasingly-unsuccessful pastiche of lobby manipulations, Party gifting, political appointments and community de-democratisation.

Several recent (2016-18) analyses are attached as in-depth treatments of political and technical failings as well as indicators of the collapse of the 2011-12 “business case reforms” which were supposed to ensure due diligence and confidence in the infrastructure pipeline, but which had the opposite effects – a breakdown in the integrity of planning, projects and budgets. Retro-government Sydney’s Improvement + Collapse in credibility in Sydney Transport + NSW Business Cases for Major Project Development Paths

I was lead consultant for Clean Air 2000 and CCOG asked me to prepare this document but it was not released, it is a landmark regardless Economies & Efficiencies in Urban Transport (c)

WashPost on G7

The main game follows this NSW Budget scrap

Berejiklian’s 2020 Budget Deceits

We’re getting close to the point of asking whether the Federal and NSW Treasuries are sufficiently competent and independent to perform their duties.

The Sydney media have broadcast the NSW Government’s Budget PR without analysing the implications, as the “mega building” $90 billion ceiling is broken for the first time (SMH) and ABC’s stenographic repetition would have us believe.

Journos should know better, after all the work done within Fairfax over time to expose cretinous secret documents including the direction to exclude transit from F6 corridor studies, which breaches every due diligence instruction “in the world” (virtually).

The details are set out in fulsome detail on these webpages but in short, value-for-money, intergenerational equity, economic efficiency, social justice, and commercial returns require much better people and processes than are seen in NSW – agencies, executives, Representatives, crafts and guilds, lobbies and unions.

Foremost are the fused operatives who do not respect “Menzies” or Eddington, past heroes or democracy – the whole circuit of politicians, ex-pollies in lobbies, banks (“Sir Desmond”) and the corporate vultures who now rule surveillance agencies and push “Belt & Roads”.

The first task of a Budget is to match needs with resources as best a Government can do. Over long periods priority was given to older areas in what Turnbull called “anachronistic spatial determinism”. Detroit, Baltimore and other cities have shown us the real consequences of broken Treasury processes. (This analyst is in course of publishing in the UK a comparative case study of Baltimore and Sydney, with a prominent American peer.)

Problems in NSW included rapscallion capriciousness which saw Labor chop and change metros in absolute confusion under the influence of unskilled advisors, with 10,000 people receiving up to $5,000,000,000 worth of three stations! The Coalition promised to end that “planning stench”, the “backroom deals”, the “metro fiascos”.

The then head of NSW Treasury, now head of the national Treasury, was on the Audit Commission that said this nonsense must stop; but he is now shovelling gold and diamonds down the throats of lobbies and consultants and killing better ideas, as explained below.

Gladys Berejiklian took the low road and has been careering down the metro track without brakes, to the point where her first project has failed commercially but still gets money from the Budget, its West sibling is luxuriating with lots of moolah going to buddy consultants given no valid protocols, and the Feds and NSW are fused in trying to get up a West Metro that is vastly higher in risk and cost as well as timespan than the alternative Greiner iNSW/RG option.

Here are the details as including the 2019-20 FY:

Sydney City & Southwest $7,315,296,000 ($7.3 billion) – patronage now 66,000 per day versus 1,034,400 to break-even on financial along (6%), the “Metro” was 17% over-expended in the last year
St Marys $248,800,000 ($249 million) – worse commercial risk, nil patronage prospects with $3.5 billion contingent as 50% share with Feds + $50 million for PR brochure (total $100 million)
West $146,124,000 ($146 million) – “$20 billion and 10 years late”.

However, the stinger is on page 118 of the boring document: expenditure on the WestMetro will be $6,400,000,000 over the next 4 years, so the “current” figure as presented (being 2% of that ) is misleading.

Even then, the current total of St Marys and West non-legitimised expenses is a little south of where the same metromaniacs took Labor (about $500 million so they’re up to close to a billion) without due diligence.

Funnily enough, a few years ago I explained to a senior planner that the West was a dud, and he said, “but they’ve spent so much on it!”. Indeed, that is the crime, then and increasingly still.

The financial failure of the current Metro is documented below.

Next, the Budget should have great ideas in it for meeting new challenges, and maintaining the best assets our predecessors worked so hard to leave us.

In Transport alone, there are 106 major projects, of which 60% have no target cost or cap. This is unbelievable Treasury incompetence cascaded down to line agencies which are under the Premier’s sight lines. Every project should have been defined in line with iNSW guidelines to a t, with Treasury acting as it used to, preventing blunders. Asset maintenance is the first victim of Budget sloppiness and that’s not good enough where there is little focus on minor asset and maintenance sections.

There is no sign of funding known deficiencies such as “Morrison’s Backyard” of congestion-riddled freight pathways; nor the crippling congestion coming off WestConnex at Rozelle. Again Berejiklian is thumbing her nose at the Feds and real communities.

Faster Rail was one of Berejiklian’s loopier ideas before the election but she brought out yet another British expert and anticipated devoting $4.6 million to 5 routes – but has allocated $295 million, which needs a thorough explanation as the Feds have put $40 million into 5 other options and Berejiklian said “she’d go it alone”. Given her record of failure, matched by the Feds’, this is a real worry situation.

The Circular Quay refurbishment, a signature tourism element, was promoted as receiving $200 million but all that is “approved as a project” is $18.5 million.

The Wynyard Walk was “inspired” by this analyst’s Barangaroo Expressnet which was estimated to cost $17 million. The Walk started at $100 million in Berejiklian’s usual magnanimous manner, rose to $300 million, a little less than the escalation in the ES tram, but has passed $317 million. C’est la vie en l’etat de l’incertitude.

The Main game – the Morrison/Frydenberg/McCormack Dilemmas

The Deputy PM, Minister for Infrastructure, Hon Michael McCormack MP, promised some 50 days ago to seriously discuss the context but has failed to do so. That has been the experience for some 5 years. The additional element is the criminal “cherry-picking” of “Save Sydney” (plagiarism) by the same governments and their agencies.

The Morrison/Frydenberg Budget 2019 continued a planning excrescence of the gravest type by gifting $3,500,000,000 to a project that has no legitimacy and no operational feasibility. The inbuilt gifting of $100 million to buddy consultants was not enough – that should have been stomped on as soon as Morrison replaced Sun King Turnbull, but no. Coming as the realisation is sinking in that the new North West Metro is technically insolvent as had been predicted by rational economists over many years, the St Marys Metro is an even worse prospect.

Added to that is the “$100 billion over 10 years” infrastructure treasure chest which turns out to be “spend $300 billion to get $100 billion” = a con job (www.sydneyimprovementpolitics.com/%24100-billion-masquerade). There are “real world consequences”:

intergenerational equity is damaged to such an extent that future generations will take about three decades to recover from the metro, tram and connex design and process mistakes that are documented throughout this site and sydneyimprovementpolitics.com
ministers embed professional PR spinners in their inner sanctums, leading to tin ears to matters of economic, social, environmental and Budget substance – see http://www.sydneyimprovementpolitics.com/ia-insw-warnings-%26-alerts
political distortions to economic credibility – the WS City Deal was a stunning example of Turnbull holding up a golden orb in one hand while torching freight and ports, rail commuting, Parramatta CBD and the Aerotropolis etcetera with the other. It was a sucker punch to local councils, the media and future generations. These aspects are richly documented on this website

The PM’s own electorate is desperately short of that $3.5 billion yet the “Turnbull barnacle” that can be seen from space continues because NSW and the Feds have expunged “due diligence”: the Feds are fused with a NSW plan-less “planning stench” (O’Farrell 2010), and mindless project cycle which can be summarised as, “who wears the britches” and the fable’s “the Empress has no clothes”!

Sydney is going through a rail-based technological climacteric at a time of local and national economic stagnation, strong population growth, over-supply of housing, and investor worries about broken infrastructure expectations.

There is no “plan” but there is also no “brain”. Every project is being pumped through the centre and out again, causing massive unnecessary congestion and expense. Ron Christie and this analyst worked out that the sensible way, an orbital from Hurstville to Strathfield, as the cheapest project in Sydney, would take 7 trains off the City Circle and 5 off the Bridge between 8 and 9 am (as an example). The Metro does the opposite which is an economic monstrosity. Add the dramatic customer benefits as explained in the flows in the Urban Transport Statement of 2006.

It was stated clearly in 2009 by the Planning Institute and the Property Council that it’s time to bite the bullet and cease Labor’s psychotic promise-the-world metromania; but in 2012 the O’Farrell Coalition betrayed their own fundamental election promise, lied about the metros they pulled from Labor’s putrid pantry, and dumped the 2009 COAG instruction to prepare a “city plan” before any further “chaos” decisions were made.

The sometimes-acknowledged need to improve community confidence produced a promised “new paradigm of engagement” from Planning Minister Stokes, who morphed that into state-sponsored compulsory property acquisitions, social damage, and forced densification along transit lines by the agency that was to deliver that paradigm, the Greater Sydney Commission, which is plan-less and has no needs analyses, meaningful planning and assessment criteria, or matrix of generally-respected project options.

There are economists sprinkled across ministerial offices in Fed and state hierarchies but no sign that economics has been heard of in the key processes.

The technical name for state dominance in political science is “fascism” although it might be more diplomatic to say “Central European state socialism”. Stokes said that GSC would “operationalise the Government’s plans”. That also befits the dictatorial behaviour of the NSW central Cabinet cabal which suppresses internal and community concerns and gifts $$$ to crony developers and lobbies.

The “elephant in the room” is the ideological and mercantile determination of both sides of mainstream politics to exploit axial metro train and tram corridors in what the former PM Malcolm Turnbull described as an exciting new way of financing infrastructure whose time had come. The medium is the PRC majority-owned MTR from Hong Kong, which has been given a privileged place in community forums even where it had no legitimate standing. Its cosy relationships with Labor and Coalition Ministers were recorded in public diaries.

The paper that is attached was produced through a series of self-edits from

2008 when NSW Labor was in a lunatic state, but its Treasurer sponsored an expert and independent review of the North West Metro – the only such independent benefit/cost study in existence, through to
2012 when the Coalition broke its major election promises, brutalised Greiner/iNSW and committed a blatant act of deceit, to
2013-4 when Treasurer Baird and Transport Minister Berejiklian distorted Port privatisation terms so as to strip-out cash at the cost of system performance, at a time the industry was angry about insufficient port capacity to support economic sustainability, to
2015-6 when the community damage, cost over-runs and route confusion inanities produced by poorly pre-planned tram, metro and tollroad projects truly exploded, to
2016 when then Premier Baird and now-Treasurer Berejiklian self-immolated over Northern Beaches and even more illegitimate MTR-based projects, ignoring a major private effort to assess the costs of damage to the legacy Bradfield rail system, and PM Turnbull sought to strengthen port monopoly distortions, to
The consolidation of all property and related development activities – planning, approval processes, the negotiation and implementation of commercial contracts, and political decision-making – in the departmental structure of the Premier who has a track record of failed project politics and economics, to
2019 and the opening of the North West Metro with the delivery of proof that the 2008 study was right – the project is not viable. It shows already a need for subsidisation of over 95% of its costs Vs the 2012 Greiner option which would be viable at current patronage levels and have been in place 5 years ago – the epitome of Berejiklian’s style.

Sydney Metro Trains, the case for a pause and re-think Notes to The Case to Pause

The metro lobbies are ignoring reality, running intensive and expensive TV “whoopee”ads, and promising to deliver even more metros, in even more places, than their progenitor Labor’s worst efforts. The results will include further deprivation of economically-justified “options”, increasing operating deficits, operational unreliability and special events curtailments, and increasing doubts about value capture in all of its aspects.

The media and NGOs have not demonstrated the ability to maintain a perspective of “the whole” over a long planning cycle that has many detailed controversies – the forest and the trees problem. This is especially so when governments are proponents and investors, being conflicted with their commercial Vs whole-of-society intergenerational, fair and equitable taxation, and national and international relationships responsibilities.

Indeed, given the failures of the main planks of democracy, and facing the prospect of structural congestion, high living costs, environmental damage and economic malaise, the question must be asked, “who can we trust”?

Summary of economic confusion

The point of economic analysis is to provide a proper basis for comparison of options in contexts which range from simple, such as a vehicle purchasing decision, through to very complex, such as a new airport. Benefit/cost analysis is the most valuable guide to complex planning challenges, but the only one conducted on Sydney’s key needs rang loud sirens – don’t do the NW Metro!

NSW post-2012 has nothing. The “biggest transit project in Australia” had a joke of a “summary business case” that had 110 (100%) redactions. Andrew Clennell, state political editor in the Tele issued a breathless “SYDNEY’S long-awaited new southwest rail line will be the “ultimate congestion buster”, carrying up to a staggering 60 trains an hour”, when the reality is probably 4 and maybe 15 until another metro has to share the central track (the dumbest mistake made in the world!).

The Minister for Transport has said in public that he might have to jack-up corridor taxes to make up for (unquantified) financial failures.* He also said that the project was so thin on commercial returns that he might have to subsidise private hotel developments by “several billions”.

This analyst said from the beginning that the “Baird Model” of real-estate- or developer-led project setup would not work, but Berejiklian threw out the baby, the bath, the bath mat, the towels and the mummy.

* Turnbull proclaimed that “value capture” would save the world, my response appeared in onlineopinion, he retreated somewhat.

There are two charts which show that Berejiklian is fixated on “too expensive, too slow to deliver, too ineffective, and too risky, one of which follows (in due course) and the other chart is at the top of sydneyimprovementpolicitics.com. A pen sketch of the main economic dimensions, “the evidence”, is:

NW & CBD/Bankstown Metro	Route chosen without analysis and arguably inferior to East Hills with its easy access line from the NW to almost all rail lines, KSA and the CBD, without a Harbour Tunnel – Christie and Greiner both said defer that for 20 years and that East Hills is highest and Bankstown lowest in priority for spending Absurd expectations of feedback flows from value capture – the “Baird Model” was a dud “from the off”, add its inherent dishonesty through the elimination of due diligence protections Technologies chosen were sub-optimal and Berejiklian blatantly stole this analyst’s copyrighted economy ideas which she admitted would save hundreds of millions Abysmal pre-planning saw the inclusion of Sutherland routes – since dropped for practical, predictable reasons; and has to finalise the Bankstown terminal, the latest rumour being Yagoona which is out-of-alignment with a possible silly Bankstown extension – woeful from go to whoa
West Metro	Labor hallucination which was resuscitated by Labor’s metromaniacs who became Berejiklian’s familiars. Supported by current Fed and NSW Labor which is proof it’s a dud $18 billion stated to be the estimated cost in 2018 but labelled earlier by SMH “$10 billion and 10 years too late” The Metro resumes Labor’s 2008-09 folly of trying to tunnel under the Harbour, which didn’t work for the original Harbour Tunnel, the CBD Metro then and at The Spit (although Berejiklian has been coy about wasting more than $100 million at the latter in so proving this analyst’s contentions) the Metro is remote from real activity centres, disadvantages the schools and other social assets built up over generations, and politically sterilises “local solutions to local problems” – see https://sydneyimprovementpolitics.com/the-value-proposition The options that had long been articulated are this analyst’s Goanna Transit Bridge, completion of Parra/Epping, and extension of the Main West line as reconfigured to 40,000 passenger per hour (an important Greiner iNSW finding from its expert international analyses).
St Marys Metro	Feb 2018 – $1 to $3 billion for heavy rail from Bringelly to Badgerys as an extension of the SW Rail Link, the default position for several decades March ’18 total of $15 billion from SW to St Marys stated by Turnbull but not in the PR, reported by The Guardian Same time $30 billion stated to be the “option”, a heavy rail link from Campbelltown to the NW which is a WSROC hallucination March ’19 St Marys metro via Schofields to Rouse Hill but SMH did not state an estimated cost PM Morrison – fully invested, “Working together our governments are going to get this done,” he said Came out of an explicitly corrupted process led by the Deputy Secretary of PMO, Dr Stephen Kennedy, and involving Malcolm as PM and Lucy Turnbull as PM’s wife and Chief Commissioner of the GSC; Angus Taylor MP as Assistant Minister for Cities and the more senior Paul Fletcher MP; and Berejiklian (and whoever she took along) Aerotropolis 200,000 jobs vs WSROC VS its website (deleted when this analyst circulated the quote): The proposed Badgerys Creek airport is … only expected to deliver a fraction of the jobs the region needs (around 60,000 jobs over the next 30 years). In the past, a passive approach to jobs creation, including the release of employment lands, has not been effective in generating the required density and diversity of employment the region needs; and therefore is unlikely to do so in the future. Use of the Main West would have connected the Second Airport to nearly every line in the State and been faster and cheaper to implement The metro will not be used: it will run for a short distance from the Main West as a stub, and only be a slightly more effective line if extended to the NW (c $7 billion) and the SW (say $8 billion plus $20 billion to correct the consequential loss of freight capacity between Wollongong and the Main West). Constance said workers will use it, no, they’ll drive their utes The 2019 Fed Budget gift of $3.5 billion cannot be justified except as a continuance of the “fruit of a poisoned tree”
Parramatta CBD	ParraCity received $100 million to develop-up its concept of web of tram routes that would offer an alternative to car usage over a wide catchment GSC changed that to a linear line to Olympic Park, to service apartment blocks whose developers said they had been promised transit – the delayed and never-to-arrive West Metro The City Deal and metro junction at St Marys undermines ParraCity at a time that PMs and Premiers rabbit on about its fabulous future
WestConnex	Disaster of a process and out of capacity by 2031 Intense congestion at the Rozelle node – extra 20,000 vehicles per day (c 20%) with no solution as Berejiklian diverted two freeway stubs towards the River which will shift existing congestion and create a whole world of extra congestion – cost $4 billion that should go to St George, all to frustrate this analyst’s “clever solution” of the Goanna Transit Bridge
Northern Beaches	This analyst’s 2008 scheme was based on Olivero principles and was cheap to build, fast and in scale with the need to avoid further over-densification on the Peninsula (which was started by Labor) Baird kept that going through Budget allocations in 2014 and many PRs until 2017 and the crunch on WestConnex – his was done badly by SHOROC and now needs to be done well The Western Harbour Tunnel and Northern Beaches freeway Link have not been properly evaluated against options, a fundamental problem being WestConnex’s over-centralisation at Rozelle instead of into regional feeder routes This is too long, too expensive and too risky, the Meriton complex at Dee Why is seen to be over-densification without infrastructure and that sort of developer-led thinking is incompatible with Baird’s and Hazzard’s “character” statements over a decade
St George & Sutherland	Berejiklian has moved the Gateways, F6 extension and railing of Port Kembla car imports into the never-never, breaking major promises in the PM’s own electorate Berejiklian and cohorts directed TfNSW to exclude transit options in n/s corridor planning which is obnoxious There has been no Benefit/Cost Analysis of the multiplicity of congestion and related costs, logistics costs, private travel and living costs, and proportionate project options (linked into network effectiveness) NSW Budget might restore Gateways and F6 but on this analyst’s long advocacy, which would be equivalent to Berejiklian’s deceitful restoration of Parra/Epping in the back pages of a freight document = plagiarism of a “public policy” nature
Port Botany	“Port Botany Club” is a monopolistic cabal in which Fed and State Govts are fused in contradiction of economic and employment priorities iA has failed to be professional and impartial as seen in the Short Haul Container Economics report (which seemed designed to sabotage this analyst’s Eastern Seabord Rail Freight Plan) and Calfas Panel on national port development frameworks – which sought to cement-in monopolies contrary to NCC and ACCC legal actions against monopoly practices including Baird’s deceitful penalisation of Newcastle through his cash-maximisation approach
Port Kembla	Frozen out of containers and cut off from Inland Rail and Western coal and grain traffics by the uber-dumb WS City Deal TfNSW’s option is a massive tunnel under shale strata across a very wide plain Business Chamber misled the community and themselves in over-stating the potential of the Maldon-Dombarton link (this analyst was one of three MOT officers who put that together in c 1980 and who now knows better)
Port of Newcastle	PON has deluded the community and ilself by saying it can handle rail freighting of containers (it does a small amount but wants to be a major A former BHP officer developed the hallucination of a long rail-pass of Sydney, from Newcastle to Western Sydney and to Port Kembla – no Government would permit such a gross environmental incursion in population and employment corridors PON refuses to pay for the IP on the route to connect with Inland Rail – a sad sight indeed, all round
Bankstown corridor	This analyst exploded the GSC’s inept housing targets – which were intended to be MTR’s housing yield around the Metro
North Shore corridor	More make-it-up-as-you-go on the Metro – GSC apparently frozen out according to Planning, with a community revolt going on in the Premier’s electorate The marginal economics for the metro seem to be insignificant compared with the community impacts
Eastern Beaches	The former Liberal Mayor of Waverley was fixated on the return of trams which is a monstrous prospect This analyst’s proposal then and still is a design competition to provide a PRT system to Bondi Beach and Coogee and possible in-between – there is no other solution to chronic congestion and parking problems, heavy rail cannot get down to the Beach (and would force over-densification)
Yarra Bay	Berejiklian has tried to solve Sydney Harbour’s cruise terminal shortage of berths by developing in the curtilage of KSA n/s runways There are no road or transit connections back to the Airport or to the CBD There is no feasible route to bring passengers and supplies in and out by barge and launch
Fast Trains	Australia has gone from long delays and shrunken expectations to Feds and NSW running 13 separate route evaluations, without “a plan” or logic. Not one will be feasible and commercially prospective, all can be seen to be Budget Bullshit.

The NSW and Fed Governments have expert economists coming out of their ears, but the results show economic heresy. There is a lack of urban and transport economics in the shells of the agencies and support units left in the wake of the politicisation of the public services – see this as just one example: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/can-thodey-or-shorten-stop-bleeding-in-the-public-service-20190329-p518sq.html.

The rest of this document is a fresh perspective on the effects of political appointees in embedding “ideology & stupidity” projects which are divorced from “city plans” and credible budgeting frameworks; and journalism which has failed to meet professional standards.

WEB LINKS – MAIN EXAMPLES

The current website has many case studies on the matters raised here. sydneyimprovementpolitics.com has many umbrella matters including commentary on Berejiklian’s Big Lies, congestion-busting, Morte d’Menzies and so on. Port and Freight matters are richly documented at http://www.thinkinglogicallogistics.info.

Plagiarism & case for sale of IP

https://sydneysimprovementpolitics.com/the-evil-of-plagiarism valuing what I’m owed
https://sydneyimprovementpolitics.com/prejudicing-generations hurting coming generations
https://sydneyimprovementpolitics.com/le-morte-dmenzies defeating Menzies
https://sydneyimprovementpolitics.com/the-value-proposition my great ideas, worth squillions

NSW Ports