Road tolls? (3)

It might just be a coincidence that 1/2 of the consortium had also managed to 'acquire' the Sydney Harbour Tunnel contract a couple of years earlier. Odd thing about the Sydney one was that the company was doing all the design work 6 months before the Carr NSW Govt announced that they were putting it out for tender.

The CityLink project had a 30 year deal as it needed a fair amount of time to recoup the money. Yeah, took all of 5 years. And what do we have now. The Govt, as part of the deal, is provided good fresh drinking water to pump in millions of gallons every day to ensure the stability of the tunnels. And by the way, they had a computer malfunction the other day and had to close the tunnels.

EastLink is another story. The Bracks' Govt promised to deliver it without tolls but then said they did not have enough money so it would have to be undertaken by a private developer, and we would have to pay a toll to use it. The Howard Govt offered Bracks $650 million towards it IF it was toll-free. As we sorefully know, Laboring will not accept anthing from the Liberals if there is the slightest condition.

Go back to the 50s and there is a different story. When the Snowy Mountain Electricty Scheme was nearing completion, the major contractor discussed with the Menzies' (Liberal) Govt the idea of constructing a dual lane (2 lanes each way) highway between Sydney and Melbourne via Canberra if they could charge a toll for the first 20 years to pay for the costs. Menzies' answer was that our roads are public roads and everyone has the free right to travel on those public roads. And hopefully by the end of next year (nearly 60 years later) that will be achieved.