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As an expat Australian I agree. But as someone who grew up in Sydney, I got to observe first-hand how the rail system / other critical infrastructure developme
by dosy 8y ago
As an expat Australian I agree.
But as someone who grew up in Sydney, I got to observe first-hand how the rail system / other critical infrastructure development projects...did not develop.
When I first came to Asia and compared Australia to, say, trains in HK, or Japan. I knew the problem.
To some extent, yes, I think we have to control immigration but blaming stressors on immigration is political expedience typical of the change-ineffective democracy we have there. A more useful culprit I see is the refusal / inability to choose to take responsibility to make the changes to critical infrastructure that could have created improvements with alleviating these stressors.
We had a mining boom (thanks, China!) and could have reinvested that free money back into growing out critical infrastructure, with decades-long future planning to exceed capacity.
But we didn't. Credit loosened the banking sector gobbled up the profits in a (mostly residential) property boom, while the population twiddled their political thumbs and battled viciously (assisted by a complicit media) over small-stakes issues, seemingly benumbed by the spectacle of 66 leadership changes in 13 years[0].
But blaming politicians is "public expediency". The people didn't do anything about it, and in the face of some challenges, are they showing much more than learned helplessness and useless blaming of politicians, without creating some changes?
I want to finish by saying that Sydney was fine, back in the late 90s. Before there was any type of pressure. But to think that situation would last forever is the height of naivety, when you have such an attractive resource. We didn't plan ahead, and we wasted the mining piggy bank I think we could have used to extend capacity to meet future projected needs. It's really very sad I find, because you have a great city, beautiful in every way, with decreasing value / utility because the quality of forward looking planning / action was so poor. Maybe the worst part of it is, Sydneysiders / Australians think quite highly of themselves, and are quite aspirational / ambitious, but they didn't enact that attitude into reality.
[0]: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-10/australia-political-leadership-rollercoaster/6080126 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-10/australia-political-le...