Public transport - why was it forgotten in the stimulus package?
Blog Post | Blog of Scott Ludlam
Thursday 5th February 2009, 4:50pm
by ScottLudlam in
What can be done to seize this opportunity to support Australians during this economic crisis?
Including public transport in the stimulus package would assist Australians in real need of an essential service during a time of petrol price volatility and peak oil looming. It would also increase the transit manufacturing sector and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Public transport benefits community health as pollution levels are reduced and individuals' activity is increased.
The fact is that people on lower incomes live further from city centres and therefore pay greater prices to travel. Those in living in inner eastern Sydney use a car for only 48.7% of all trips and travel on average 10.1 kilometres per day. In contrast those living in outer west suburbs of Sydney use private transport for 79.1% of all trips and while travelling on average 33.1 kilometres each day (DIPNR, 2003).
How much does it cost us to keep forgetting about public transport?
The Bureau of Transport and Regional economics estimates the cost of the health effects of motor vehicle pollution as $2.6b per year (Australia's Future Oil Supply and Alternative Transport Fuels, 2007). The cost of traffic congestion in Australian cities has been estimated by the Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics as $12.8 billion per year (Australia's Future Oil Supply and Alternative Transport Fuels). The cost of road traffic injury and death is $1billion per year.
Investment in roads - which we haven't seen in the stimulus package - but is nevertheless a disproportionate focus of the current government's funding.
At present (2004-2009) the Federal Government is spending $15.8 billion of AusLink Funding of which only around 9% is allocated to rail infrastructure (Australian Greens Policy Initiative, Road to Rails, 2007). This is certainly not reflecting the ‘enormous changes' that the 2007 Senate Committee Report Australia's Future Oil Supply and Alternative Transport Fuels acknowledged as being required to establish a less oil dependant economy.
The higher demand for public transport investment over road investment was reflected in a recent Age/Neilson poll in Victoria. 62% of respondents wanted the government to give public transport priority over roads.
Support in Melbourne was stronger again with 68% of respondents wanting more funding directed to public transport than roads (The Age, Fix Public Transport Before Roads, 2008).
There is an increased demand for public transport, which is not being met
- The rapid increase in fuel prices since 2004 has resulted in a greater demand for public transport.
- In Brisbane in the three years since 2004 there was on an increase in patronage on average of 9.7% per year.
- Melbourne has also experienced a great increase in rail users since 2004 with around a 10% increase annually (Unsettling Surburbia- The New Landscape of Oil and Mortgage Vulnerability in Australian Cities, 2008).
- In March 2007 in Brisbane 1,749 buses were forced to turn away passengers because they were too full.
To encourage more people to use public transport we must provide them with an incentive to do so and this means providing a reliable and efficient service. Forcing people to wait for another bus or train will increase the appeal in simply using private transport.
Building housing without including fast, efficient and safe public transport is not doing anyone any favours. It is doing no favours to lower income people to build housing that strands them on the outer fringes of cities where they are acutely vulnerable to rising transport costs and falling land values.
Not only is an efficient mass transit system an essential component of any carbon reduction strategy, but improving mass transit means Australians will spend less on petrol, waste less time in traffic jams, reduce congestion and be able to access the services that they need. Other benefits of course include clean air, the increased safety of our communities, more open spaces and so on.
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The state government is only
The state government is only now investing in extra heavy rail capacity now that commuters are packed like sardines into trains. Yes, the BCC is putting a few more buses on the road and the state government are contributing to a few busways but buses just can't do the same job as trains, getting people in from the outer suburbs.
The state governments need money from the federal government to be able to afford massive public transport infrastructure projects. Instead, we're getting money for road tunnels which will not encourage sustainable transport at all.
As you allude to, investment in public transport saves us money on petrol, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and relieves road congestion, keeping the transport network moving more efficiently. Rudd still has a long way to go before he can be held up as a symbol of change and Australia's climate saviour.
Not the only thing forgotten
There's heaps they could have done. $950 for people to buy wiis or whack on their mortgage, once it's spent that's that, the country has nothing to show for the $12 billion. But building infrastructure - public transport, renewable energy, replacing old transformers so we don't get blackouts again in Melbourne/Adelaide - this is stuff that'll create jobs, create income for the country, and will still be around decades from now.
I say the Greens ought to reject the package as it stands. I don't care about debts - whether it's $400 billion of government (public) debt (as under ALP) or $650 billion of foreign (private) debts (as under Lib-Nats), it comes to the same thing, debts. But there's a difference between me in my private life getting into debt for (say) a night out with the boys, and getting into debt to (let's say) put in a water tank. One leaves me with nothing, the other leaves me with something. Likewise in public affairs.
If we're going to get into huge debt, let's build something.
It is my understanding that
It is my understanding that the State governments are to spend some of their allocated funding on infrastructure like roads and public transport. I had heard that NSW is planning to use some of their funding for the extension of the CBD metro. Is this not the case?
my understanding
Thanks Jess. My understanding is that the NSW Government is putting forward a proposal to get the CBD metro funded out of this, at least half-heartedly. However, this package really doesn't make that an option. I'd imagine we'll have to wait and see what Infrastructure Australia recommend to find out if that'll go ahead with Commonwealth assistance.
Couldnt agree more?
I couldnt agree more with this comment. Public Transport for all of Australias history nearly has fallen through the cracks and been forgotten about. Rudd should have spent more money on it. Hopefully the Greens in passing this legislation will be able to get some more money for public transport.
Debt
As I understand it the worlds current financial crisis will lead to either of 2 possibilities.
1 Inflation will massively reduce the value of money in a relatively short period of time or
2 Interest from debt will drag the economies of the entire world into a long term perpetual stagnation leading in 5 to 7 years time a rebaseing of the worlds currency and a forgiveness of all debt.
Either way it makes infinite sense for our government to borrow the maximum amount of money that it can get its hands on now and to use it.
As well as huge funding boosts on public transport they should also be funding solar power generators, solar power cell manufacturing facilities, solar hot water systems, insulation, water tanks and less power intensive methods of food production. The world as a whole will soon see the rise of a massive increase in the cost of petrol that in turn will lead to a massive rise in the cost of food. And we are so ill prepared.
Why stimulate an overstimulated economy further?
Surely the Greens, rather than simply giving the Government (qualified) carte blanche to spend $42B with minimal oversight, should be arguing the case for a far smaller fiscal stimulus at this time. With Australia's current account deficit heading toward 10% of GDP and its atrocious record on carbon emissions, why is everyone agreed we need more, rather than less, economic activity? Shouldn't the Greens more than anyone stand against this fetishisation of GDP over every other economic and non-economic value? As most of the extra activity will be in the low-value-added construction industry with its absurdly high emissions from cement, transportation and aircon, expect more heat island effects and low-albedo spots as a result... At the very least the Greens should be insisting on 6 Green Stars for every funded project.
PS the government's handout of $6B to the braindead local subsidiaries of GM and Ford to keep pumping out V6s long past their useby date beggars belief. Why were the Greens not opposed on this issue?
The Greens did oppose the car company handouts
Laurence, the Greens have long spoken out against the cash that flows regularly from governments to car manufacturers to help them keep pumping out big polluting cars. In the case of the $6B handout you mention, the Coalition supported it, so our vote, sadly, in that case was meaningless.
In terms of this package, what the Greens want to ensure is not the continued fetishisation of growth at all, but that we don't see hundreds of thousands of Australians out of work! We need as many people as possible employed building the new green infrastructure we'll need for a zero carbon economy. The Greens are working damn hard to ensure that as much of this package as possible is directed towards that goal.
Regarding ensuring that new developments are 6 stars, for example, all I can say is watch this space. Negotiations will take some time, but keep tuning in for any updates we can give. And check out Christine Milne's latest media release from ths afternoon.
kevin 09 stimulus
Forget the cash handouts. the money must be spent on transport infrastructure - a win for voters, business and the environment.
stimulus package
I have the greatest respect for the Greens and Bob Brown. However, I think that the idea that the $950 for those earning under $80,000 is unwarranted is wrong. There are plenty of people on that sort of income that would greatly appreciate a small fillip in the current situation and I for one think that most of it would be spent quickly thus providing the needed boost to the economy. The stimulus package and consequent deficit are a means of keeping the economy bubbling along until the private sector recovers.
If you want to cut someone's income then, by all means, go after those exorbitant executive salaries.
Stimulus
It appears that the stimulus packages are being designed with the view that the downturn will be quite shortlived. The 10.5B pre-christmas giveaway appears mostly to have gone on imported christmas presents or debt reduction. Neither of which benefits the local economy with any sort of efficiency making it means an exceedingly poor use of funds. Neither of these uses of funds has the desired stated medium term benefit.
If the downturn is going to be shortlived there is little need for a stimulus since the situation will self correct soon by definition. Logically the decision to provide a stimulus is an acknowledgement that the downturn is likely to be protracted. Near the end of a protracted downturn we will see genuine economic hardship that makes the perceived problems of today seem utterly trivial by comparison and there will be justifiable rage about the money wasted today (i.e. 10.5B before Christmas) that could have provided far greater benefit during the truly difficult times.
This begs the question of how to use the funds. In any economic downturn in history there exists an industry which does relatively well. Its characteristics are that it is innovative and is in a growth phase and not close to saturation of its market. Importantly the market for that industry is not yet mature. Mature market products and services do poorly in downturns because most people can easily defer new purchases so it is incredibly wasteful to prop those industries up. The most efficient use of funds is to propel the emerging growth industry and harness its momentum to reduce the depths of the inevitable bottom and create the growth that will provide jobs to replace those from declining industries and in the end bring us out of recession or depression.
In relative terms (compared to eventual bottom) incredibly few of us are doing it tough right now and those that are genuinely suffering are suffering for reasons unrelated to the financial crisis and were suffering before it emerged. And in relative terms compared to all of human history the same holds.
So knee jerk reactions to blow our financial resources at the first hint of trouble are incompetent in the extreme. It is important to keep perspective and keep your powder dry and aim your financial cannons well and only fire when the value of the shot is maximised.
Very insightful Janny
Economies expand and contract. That’s what they do. The economy may benefit significantly from handouts, tax-breaks and excessive government spending, and it may not. In the absence of verifiable proof the prudent step is to hold the cash.
um . . . is climate change what it's all about . . .
. . . went down to the beach today, as you do on such a day, by the train and the bus naturally, and i lost count of the number of cars with mostly just one person inside or sometimes two - and we ask for government to act, which they must, but so must every one of us in everything we do, in every way -
of course in this little green blog it's a matter of preaching to the converted - but the above is why i find it hard to see the action being taken that is necessary at this late hour -
this present stimulus package is essentially throwing money out the window if in the end we don't come up with a carbon emissions free economy - an immense subject to change everything we do, everything - how anything else can possibly work is beyond my simple brain -
i see nothing in the big bucks on offer that points to a livable future after(?) the current financial chaos -
i've no doubt the plan is a product of a chain saw mentality - undoubtably there is not a creative bone up there in the heights of power that could ever imagine an alternate reality, and this is who we elect to run the show . . . with the help of the other keepers of the status quo - naturally because they are us (well, some, most? of us) -
for me it's terribly depressing (ahem) -
here's a little link that i expect you all have seen -
http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/26/noaa-climate-change-irreversible-1...
Yes Keith we do need to take responsibility, govt can still act
Yes Keith, I agree.
People all winge about climate change, or how the governement should do this or that, but one of the most hypocritical things they then do, is drive their car over short distances, and fail to use public transport. We need to promote things such as riding a bike, walking, and public transport over driving a car.
We have existing, off the shelf technologies which are under used. Indeed riding a bike and walking to destinations, not only help the planet, but they save on congestion, improve health and lower health costs, reduce air pollution, and have been shown to reduce depression. Indeed, over 50% of car trips are under 5km, with such distances easily undertaken by bike. Yet this is not encouraged, and we have an unhealthy car culture in this country.
In order to promote a healthier climate, as well as a healthier lifestyle the government however, can play a role. This needs to be both a carrot and stick approach. Firstly we need to develop the infrastructure to allow people to take alternative travel to their car. Then after we have done this, we need to develop things like a congestion tax. We also need to police the bad attitude that some motorists have towards people who commute via pushbike, in order to allow them to feel safe.
Don't blame the masses
Forgive me, but theres a good chance I could have been one of those sole drivers. As a low income earner living in outer suburbia I'm left with little option but to drive my car, all be it an economical Corolla, to almost all destinations. While I do have access to public transport, it is limited, and far less convenient. The alternative to my 15min drive to work is a 45min train trip or up to a 90min bus trip, and my journey to uni is either by a 30min drive or a 2hr train trip with no bus alternative. But even if everyone were to only use public transport we would still be only cutting out a relatively small proportion of GHG's, with the transport sector contributing around 15% of GHG's compared to around 70% by the stationary energy sector. I struggle to justify giving up my personal freedoms of driving when the government not only continues to support the coal industry and advocate supposedly 'clean coal' fired electricity generators, but also provides up to $9 billion in subsidies to various fossil fuel industries. Not spending this money on renewable energies and green car technologies seems absurd given the impending peak oil crisis and a finite supply of coal and gas.
$42 Billion handout
This must be properly evaluated.
All expenditure should be directed to infrastructure such as public transport, rail freight, decent roads for remote communities, energy production/conservation using solar, wind and ocean wave/current technologies and most importantly - water.
Cash handouts are of no meaningful benefit to the Australian economy. They will help the 3rd world economies such as Samoa, Philippines, Middle east etc as new migrants from there send any available cash back to support their families. Also, any money spent on manufactured goods will probably support the Chinese economy more than the Australian economy. The computers for every student will support the Chinese economy because that is where the computers will be manufactured.
The more efficient that Australian infrastructure can be made, the better will be our ability to come out of any recession.
If the advisers to the Government are the same as those said that inflation is a problem and supported the increase in interest rates - thereby duplicating the effect of the increase in oil prices - then we are in big trouble. The world is in recession because of that very viewpoint.
There was a plan to build a system of dams at the Clarence river - a project bigger than the Snowy project - which was canceled by successive Labour Governments - why can't infrastructure of that nature be brought into being.
Why is the world in recession
Peter you say the 'world' is in recession due to the double whammy of high oil prices and high interest rates. This simply isn't the case.
Our RBA's approach in raising interest rates in the face of high oil prices stood in stark contrast to the efforts of other central banks who were reducing rates in the face of a rising oil price.
The cause of the global crisis is quite simply huge growth in debt without proper pricing of risk of default (too much bad debt). The growth in debt funded a massive boom. And the present shrinking of debt (de-leveraging) is having the opposite effect (a recession).
The currently popular cure is to increase government debt which in the end won't be seen to be a cure at all, just a cause of great future hardship, but hey just like climate change that cost will be covered by our kids so party on.
The great failing of our political system is its astonishingly limited capacity to commit to enduring hardship now for the sake of the future. A wise,good and all powerful autocrat would be vastly superior to a democracy, but of course an autocratic system is fatally flawed in that we might instead get a stupid or nasty all powerful autocrat which would be far worse than a democracy.
Why is the world in recession
I respectfully disagree Janny on causes of economic recession, will recycle the argument of economist Jeff Rubin of CIBC (http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4727) and others. High oil prices resulted in trillions of dollars draining out of oil-importing economies to high savings economies, and that led to rising debt defaults. Debt defaults in US and elsewhere were much smaller than the cost of oil imports and could not have had the impact that has been attributed to them of triggering the economic decline.
It is an important point to clarify as high oil prices are likely in the future too, given declining production and crashing investment. I'm not for a moment saying we should therefore further subsidise oil industry or cut fuel excise, or that the banks and financial regulators shouldn't be prosecuted for their irresponsibility. But understating the effects of energy and other resource limits will not help us get out of this hole.
Why the world is in recession
There is probably some chicken and egg to consider here and its not all black and white either. Lots of things will contribute and I will enthusiastically agree that high oil prices will be a factor, but very much doubt they are the primary cause for several reasons.
i) If the oil importing economies were not in a debt bind then the high oil prices would not have exposed bad debts. This is the chicken and egg thing.
ii) Oil prices are now about 70% lower than their peak and this price drop simply isn't fixing the recession. If oil prices were the primary cause then oil's dramatic drop in price would have a significant impact on the outlook.
iii) At the beginning of 2008 I recall being very surprised how little effect the high oil prices actually had.
iv) The US sub-prime debt problems arose well before the high oil prices dramatically rose. This subprime debt was the first symptom of the deeper problem of massive debt. Steve Keen does an excellent job of explaining this. He argues (contrary to conventional economics that got us in this mess) that central banks aren't the key creators of credit, instead banks have created most of the credit in the economy. His models of a pure credit economy appear to do a better job of explaining things than neoclassical economic models.
I am a mature age postgraduate researcher in finance and economics and find the crumbling of the whole conventional academic economic edifice fascinating. From the inside looking out I have to say that a frightening amount of economic theory is a bit like the emperor's new clothes.
You might think accepted scientific journal articles on economics are a source of reliable insight, however there is a very reasonable argument that they can generally be expected to be nonsense. The reason is simple. Only about 5% of papers get accepted for publication. And they all tend to use an alpha of 5% meaning the risk of a Type I error is 5%. A type I error means a paper shows statistical signifance where none exists. Only papers that show statistical significance get accepted by the journal. The acceptance process is therefore be highly skewed to selecting papers that have made Type I errors.
Rationalising an explanation for an apparently significant result is a core human skill and so it relatively straightforward for an economist to construct an impressive explanation for the results of their analysis. This skill is evidenced by the array of elaborate religions we have invented over time to explain away random events like weather as an example. It is also evidenced by watching actual lawyers at play (not the TV ones). This skill doesn't make the explanation right, just convincing to those who are not skeptical.
So much for the protection afforded by peer review in the social sciences *sigh*
Victoria Will Be Spending Some Money on Public Transport
I agree with Scott that all states should spend part of their money on Public Transport, and from the media in Melbourne, the State Government intends to do so.
Fortunately / unfortunately, State Governments need to spend on quick fixes NOW, and long term solutions over a period of time.
Public transport upgrades, as in high volume transport, tend to need many years to be upgraded due to a range of factors, not just the money. It is fine to say increase the availability of high volume transport to outter suburbs, but, as the Government in Victoria has established, you can basically only utilise / expand the existing rail network, as rail corridors through inner suburbs, were generally created 50 - 75 years ago, and cannot be expanded. Melbourne suburban rail network has numerous bottlenecks in the inner suburbs which cannot just be expanded without major cutting / embankment enlargement and property demolitions. To try to overcome these hurdles, the State Government has established that major tunnels need to be created to move the trains under ground. In addition, the State Government is planning on upgrading signal infrastructure in an attempt to run more frequent services. Again upgrading signal infrastructure takes many years, but effort has commenced.
The Victorian State Government has also purchased many new trains for the network, with delivery through to post 2010. These trains will be coming from Europe, and as far as possible be assembled in Victoria, paid for by sections of the stimulus package. Unfortunbately Australia does not just have the heavy industry to build all the train components in Australa (it would take many, many years for local industry be able to upgrade to build the trains wholey in Australia).
Now if we look at roads upgrades. Basically, road expansion availability has been provisioned on all major road infrastructure for the past 50 years, so increasing road arterial capacity is quite a quick job. It might take a couple of years to expand a freeway, but this is not the 5 - 10 years that would be required to expand high volume public transport (planning, environmental clearences, tunneling etc.).
In my view, the only feasible option is to remove the requirements for people to travel into city CBDs. The State Governments in each state should be encouraging the building of satelite cities / suburban areas, and encouraging business to move out into the satelite areas. Doing this would enable the average city worker to not have a need to come into a city, and would be much easier for the State Governments to provide public transport for these workers. The major hurdle to doing this would be the inner city lobby groups who would scream blue murder as their property values would drop dramatically as outer suburbs would be more attrractive to live in for middle / upper levels of workers.
Anyway in summary, the State Government is planning on utilising part of the simulus package on upgrading high volume public transport where ever possible.
Debt
A quick comment about the economic arguments put forth on this blog. The present financial system is fundamentally unsustainable due to usury (the lending of money at interest). At any positive interest rate (interest rate greater than zero) the money supply grows exponentially. Exponential growth is ultimately faster than the growth of any real physical assets so eventually debt exceeds assets and the system collapses. That is what we are seeing now on a nearly worldwide scale.
Another unfortunate side effect of usury is it induces governments (or international banks - which amount to the same thing) to adopt a fiat currency (a currency without tangible backing, e.g. gold). Fiat currencies ultimately allow 'the elite' who issue the currency to have dictatorial power (e.g. 'The people have no bread? Then let them eat cake!').
A stable sustainable financial system must ban usury, have a backed currency, and prohibit 'fractional reserve banking'. Such a system is much less rewarding for bankers but would allow the rest of us to do something useful for society.
Debt
Ram there is an error in your first paragraph. Debt doesn't exceed assets as a consequence of positive interest, inflation takes care of the problem you refer to. Basically the money supply is increased in order to meet interest payments which means it takes increasingly more money to buy a given asset.
There is no evidence that fiat currencies ultimately allow the elite to assume dictatorial power. The quote you refer to precedes the advent of fiat currency. The march of history suggests the opposite to what you say.
I think you might have been watching "The Moneylenders" or "The Zeitgeist Movie" that circulates on the net. These videos pander to conspiracy theorists and set out to build a foundation from which to lurch to rather shaky conclusions. They are hardly a dispassionate scientific analysis, although to their credit the elimination of fractional reserve banking is probably a good idea.
An individuals debt to asset balance at a given time is a function of what we all collectively agree an asset is worth at that time. Sometimes we get exuberant and bid up asset values enormously and excitedly borrow heavily to buy even more assets, and then the music stops and we get fearful and sell them down. An individual who borrowed heavily against an asset's past value can get hammered if the future value becomes less. However against this the person who sold the asset for a past high price now has exceptional buying power. Debt only exceeds asset values for an individual, for each such individual there will be another with the opposite situation.
Finally this whole bidding up and down process is driven by the fluctuating willingness of private credit providers to collectively lend. Those providers are as subject to fear and greed as the rest of us. The reason is simply that the future is uncertain and our attempts to make projections are heavily influenced by our emotions because we aren't built to deal with randomness very well.
Money, inflation, and the financial system
You have a point there about inflation reducing the effective value of dollar denominated debt. However, in a fractional reserve banking system, the amount of debt money created tends to lead the inflation. Ultimately, of course, all fiat currency systems result in hyper-inflation and collapse.
I think it is hard to argue that an elite that 'prints' the fiat money does not gain nearly infinite financial power, and as they say "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
As an aside, I am a businessman who has taught mathematical finance at the post graduate level, so I can play the 'quant' game as well as any bent banker - maybe better, since my clients tend to be winning and the banks are definitely losing.
even Ivory Coast...
If we do build up our public transport, I hope we'll make sure to build the stuff in Australia. We keep importing the things - trains and trams from Sweden and Germany not designed for Aussie conditions, so the trains' airconditioning conks out over 35C - ie when you need airconditioning, it stops working, when you don't need it it works fine.
Even Ivory Coast build their own buses, so I'm sure we can manage.
It was interesting to see Christine Milne on Q&A last night talking with the union guy. He was keen to protect miners' jobs. Surely rather than digging up and exporting a million tonnes of iron and then importing 10,000 buses made from it, it would be better for us to dig up just half a million tonnes of iron and then build ourselves 5,000 buses. After all, it employs more people to manufacture a bus than dig up the metal for it.
It's like the old thing of us cutting down our forests, selling woodchips to Japan for $10 a tonne and then importing paper products made with those woodchips for $10,000 a tonne. If we must cut down our forests, we should at least make real money from it, not peanuts. Then perhaps we'd want to cut down less - we could cut 100 times less and still make the same money from it all.
Seems like only the Greens support Australia being a manufacturing economy, everyone else wants us to stick to "dig it up, sell it overseas." We could have stayed a colony...
Transport systems
Have just finished doing a degree, as part of one of my Sustainability subjects undertook research on a city in Brazil called Curitiba. They have the best transport system in the world . They started back in the 60s and 70s framing how they wanted the system to work . Critical to the success of the process was the engagement of the community in dialogue with government on the needs and aspirations of all sectors of community from the affluent through the middle class and inclusive of the poor. They now have something we would be well served to try and emulate. But the signposts for this kind of change in Australia aren't visible to the naked eye.
sounds very interesting Alan
got any links about that Brazilian city's system that are reasonably digestible?
thanks in advance :-)
Why don't the Greens like bicycles?
If the Greens are supposedly committed to reducing motor vehicle pollution, why have they consistently failed to speak out about mandatory bicycle helmet laws?
If the response is going to be that it's worth discouraging cycling because the helmet law has saved lives and prevented injury over the past 17 years, do some research first at http://www.cycle-helmets.com
What an extraordinary thing to say!
The Greens have negotiated the biggest ever investment in cycling infrastructure in Australia's history through the recent stimulus package! Of course we love bicycles!
re mandatory helmets, I would have thought that is a state and territory issue for state and territory Greens, but I will check the link to see what you suggest. However, my personal experience is that wearing a helmet saved me from quite serious injury once when knocked off my bike and I have little doubt that they have saved many many others.
Public transport funding
It is really about time federal government relise huge amounts of money need to be pumped into the public transport system ,to extend lines ,buy more rail cars ,improve speed and efficentcy ,upgrade ageing fleets and stations,and improve quality.
fedral spending on public transport is a disgrace and they need to be held accountable.public transport is a major component in carbon emission reduction and unless funding is allocated to states to buils the system it just won't happen.public transport line extensions can improve the quality of life in communities unbelievabley.
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