Page 612 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 1990
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(1) encouraging public support for the very fast train project;
(2) undertaking specific studies on environmental and planning issues associated with the project; and
(3) its active participation in discussions with the Governments of NSW, Victoria and the Commonwealth directed towards achieving a coordinated national approach to the development of the project.".
MR MOORE (11.35): Mr Speaker, on its initial viewing, the very fast train project seems like a very good idea, but it does have some major problems. Those major problems are best illustrated by the Institution of Engineers conference today - supposedly a conference to work out the ramifications of the very fast train and what it is likely to do. But at the price per head - and I have heard various figures bandied about, from $350 to $650; either way it does not matter - it is clearly aimed at the corporate sector. It is aimed at getting people there who can see how they might make money out of the very fast train. I am the last one to be critical about anybody making money out of a project; it is quite appropriate and that is how our system works. But when you are making money out of a project there are different ways to do it and one of the things about which we have to be very careful with the very fast train project is just how that money is made.
There were two suggested routes for the very fast train, one going through Wagga and down alongside the Hume Highway; the other going down through Gippsland and a number of very sensitive environmental areas. The people who are pushing the very fast train project have already pooh-poohed their own suggestion of going down the Hume Highway. Why? If you are just looking at just the very fast train, at getting people from Sydney to Melbourne through Canberra very quickly and doing so in the cheapest possible way, then you should look at that particular route. Why do they favour the other route? The reason is that as far as the corporate groups are concerned, the very fast train project is really about a land grab. That is something that members of the Rally should look at closely. It is about a land grab. What you do is open a whole series of new areas to land development. You do not make your money on the very fast train; there is no suggestion of making money on the ticketing or anything like that - it is about making your money on land development, on land speculation.
If you support the notion of big corporate citizens making huge amounts of money on land speculation, then it is appropriate to support the very fast train project and to support its route down through environmentally sensitive areas - what I will call the eastern route. It is very questionable to hand that money over to the speculators and
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