Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

Sydney / New South Wales Transport Discussion
Linto63
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

Post by Linto63 »

So the government having been told that creating TAHE will cause problems down the track by PWC, go doctor shopping and armed with a second opinion from KPMG decide to proceed with it. Inevitably the accounting standards loophole the treasury have exploited will be closed, then all of this off-balance sheet debt will need to be recognised, probably not in the life of the present administration, but a nice black hole for a future government.
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boronia
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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Thank heavens for a free press, including SMH & ABC, though even they are threatened......
Linto63
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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Quite, those on this board who are usually very quick to dismiss any reporting of the government in a negative light by Nine as biased have gone strangely quiet. 🤬
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

Post by tonyp »

lunchbox wrote: Sat Aug 21, 2021 2:59 pm Thank heavens for a free press, including SMH & ABC, though even they are threatened......
Threatened by whom? They don't have a parliamentary enquiry and a couple of former Prime Ministers after their blood like another media company. SMH is free to say what it likes. ABC is supposed to be governed by a charter to ensure its impartiality.
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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tonyp wrote: Sat Aug 21, 2021 4:17 pm
Threatened by whom? They don't have a parliamentary enquiry and a couple of former Prime Ministers after their blood like another media company. SMH is free to say what it likes. ABC is supposed to be governed by a charter to ensure its impartiality.
With emphasis on the "supposed"
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Linto63
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

Post by Linto63 »

tonyp wrote: Threatened by whom?
The point being made by Lunchbox being that only the ABC / Nine seem willing to challenge the government. This story is a fairly big one and has been running for a few days. Has it been mentioned in News Corp papers, doesn't seem to have appeared on any of their websites?
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

Post by Merc1107 »

Linto63 wrote: Sat Aug 21, 2021 4:39 pm
tonyp wrote: Threatened by whom?
Has it been mentioned in News Corp papers, doesn't seem to have appeared on any of their websites?
How convenient that Murdoch's pawns aren't talking about the problems with conservative politics (there was a laughable article on SkyNews some time ago about "cabals of elites controlling the narrative", sounded like Murdoch's primary objective!).

Had the misfortune of watching Peta Credlin on Sky recently. It was like watching Fast Forward's old "Hunch" sketches, even though there were elements of truth mingled in the live diatribe.
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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I was always find Sky News amusing, but I don't believe any of it for a second. Sadly though there are some that do.
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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There is a cross connection to this in the Rod Staples dismissal saga thread
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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People hear what they want to hear according to their own bias. Just using Sydney transport as an example, the News Corp media was very supportive of the Sydney light rail project but scathing in its criticisms of what went wrong during the project. The SMH has tended to focus more on anything that goes wrong - as they should, but we never seem to hear the positive side. It's good that they've scooped this story and we'll see if News catches up with it.
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

Post by Aurora »

I think News would only touch it if any consequences for the government appear, for now it does not appear to have reached that level quite yet.
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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Aurora wrote: Sun Aug 22, 2021 1:11 am I think News would only touch it if any consequences for the government appear, for now it does not appear to have reached that level quite yet.
More likely not broadly newsworthy yet. Having worked in government with both political sides in power at different times, I don't see it as anything much different from the usual political/bureaucratic machinations, of which there are many over the years. Staples has done the right thing in this case. Put it this way, if you're a media organisation with a bias towards one side of politics, you go hunting for anything that makes the other side look bad. That applies across the board. I do note, however, that News is the only major player that lets alternative viewpoints be aired through op eds and discussion panels - for example you see many op eds by Labor politicians, unionists, environmentalists etc in the Telegraph, but outlets like the SMH, Guardian and ABC are just gigantic echo chambers who only let an alternative opinion in if it can be ridiculed. Deplatforming somebody means that you know what you are trying to promote is not true and you can't win a debate about it, so instead you try to silence any critic. Let's just say that that's not a approach that conservatives favour by nature, but, regrettably, the left side of politics is increasingly playing that dangerous game nowadays. We all know where that leads.
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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I agree with everything you say, except that the US conservative side under Trump seems to have mainstreamed deplatforming with the cry of "fake news".
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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‘Honey pot’: Consultants charge $550,000 for six weeks’ work on NSW rail entity

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/hon ... 58kbr.html
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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1whoknows wrote: Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:36 am I agree with everything you say, except that the US conservative side under Trump seems to have mainstreamed deplatforming with the cry of "fake news".
Deplatforming is when you deprive people of a public outlet for speaking at all. Last I saw, all those media who were accused of peddling fake news are still openly trading and continuing to say what they want. The Afghan Taliban summarised the situation very well - and hilariously - a couple of days ago when they answered American calls for them to protect free speech etc by pointing out that Americans had been suppressing it themselves through deplatforming on Facebook, Twitter etc, so it was hypocritical to demand it from the Taliban. What goes around comes around.
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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boronia wrote: Mon Aug 23, 2021 7:36 am ‘Honey pot’: Consultants charge $550,000 for six weeks’ work on NSW rail entity

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/hon ... 58kbr.html
The SMH should buy dictionaries for its journalists. A honey pot is a decoy, usually in the Mata Hari sense. Gravy Train is probably more the term, particularly apt in the case of railways!

I did a lot of work for both public and private sectors and the most lucrative job I ever had was for Railcorp. I thought it was quite out of proportion to the work actually required - and I imagine I was the cheapest tenderer. The general issue with the public service is a lax attitude towards managing contracts, I would say generally because they don't have a personal stake in the money, so they don't have much of a notion of cost effectiveness. It's one of the significant arguments for privatisation.
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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It does not always work that way. At one time I was working for the Commo0nwealth Bank both before and after privatisation and contract management was taken most seriously. But when the computer section was outsourced, those managing contracts were soon taught not to go for the cheapest contact but go for the contract which would sock the customer, in this case the Commonwealth Bank, the most.
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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Fleet Lists wrote: Mon Aug 23, 2021 10:56 am It does not always work that way. At one time I was working for the Commo0nwealth Bank both before and after privatisation and contract management was taken most seriously. But when the computer section was outsourced, those managing contracts were soon taught not to go for the cheapest contact but go for the contract which would sock the customer, in this case the Commonwealth Bank, the most.
Yes I do agree that large private corporations can be like the public service sometimes. But with that bank was it a relic of it formerly being public service with a large residue of the former management still in place?
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

Post by Linto63 »

tonyp wrote: The SMH should buy dictionaries for its journalists. A honey pot is a decoy, usually in the Mata Hari sense. Gravy Train is probably more the term, particularly apt in the case of railways!
Print edition was headlined as "Consultants charge $550,000 for six weeks’ work on NSW rail entity". 'Honey pot' was a quote from the opposition transport minister, so most probably the words of his spin doctor.
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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tonyp wrote: Mon Aug 23, 2021 11:09 am Yes I do agree that large private corporations can be like the public service sometimes. But with that bank was it a relic of it formerly being public service with a large residue of the former management still in place?
The management which forced the new approach was from the private company which took over and not the bank. (From the reports I received - I was no longer there by that time.)
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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Battle over $40b rail entity left Sydney network on knife edge

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/bat ... 58ow5.html
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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Premier warned about safety risks posed by setting up $40b rail entity

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/pre ... 58w0z.html
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

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New chief of controversial rail corporation pockets $575,000 a year

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/new ... 58wgj.html
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Re: Transport Administration Amendment (Transport Entities) Act

Post by Transtopic »

This is becoming farcical. How could the CEO of TAHE, a small corporatised entity with only 20 staff, warrant a similar salary to the Treasury Secretary?

The government hasn't learned the lessons of the past, when Labor split Railcorp into a similar structure with the Rail Infrastructure Corporation (RIC) and the Rail Access Corporation (RAC), only to bring them back under Railcorp following the Glenbrook and Waterfall rail accidents. They are blinded by their ideology to set up the future privatisation of the Sydney Rail network in a similar manner to the metro model and the privatisation of the bus regions. As has happened with the bus regions, you can expect that the existing Sydney Trains routes will be compartmentalised into separate sectors which can be auctioned off to private operators. Through running of services between sectors will be discouraged requiring more interchange than would otherwise be the case if there were a single operator, similar to the bus network. It just won't work.

As I understand it, TAHE is supposed to operate on a commercial basis charging access fees to respective operators, but it's difficult to see how it could be profitable without grossly inflating those fees, leading to higher public transport fares. There would be an incentive to minimize costs to be profitable and the most likely candidate to achieve that would be to cut back on maintenance of the network with the inevitable safety implications. Otherwise it would constantly be in deficit, taking it off the budget. The operators could complain all they like, but the infrastructure provider, i.e. TAHE, could just ignore them. Sounds like a bit of deja vu here.

Does this explain why the government appears to be reluctant to commit any funding to the expansion of the existing Sydney Trains network?
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