Lunatic option
BIT rich for Labor to call for the resignation of the Health Minister on account of the Royal Hobart Hospital shambles. It was the ALP when in government that decided on the lunatic option of trying to rebuild a working hospital on site, while that hospital was still expected to cope with an inevitably increasing demand. This was in the face of good, practical alternative greenfield sites being available and advocated, including the Domain site below the Cenotaph and a site at the showgrounds, later shown by Bunnings to be an indisputably suitable location
It would be the ultimate hypocrisy to criticise a succeeding government when that government had at least the wit to stop construction until it had looked around for a more sensible alternative, but found none because by then it was too late.
When the economic regulator cut the feed in tariff to 8c/kWh at the end of this year it means effectively giving Aurora an extra profit of 20c/kWh for the electricity I have paid $5000 to produce and this does not count the inevitable replacement costs I will need to pay in a 10-year replacement cycle. Imagine if all households in Tasmania invested in solar systems, how much more we could become the battery of the nation.
Planning failure
WAYNE Crawford’s chronicle of consequences from lack of long-term planning is spot on, but he omitted the other side of the problem – bad plans resulting from pre-election thought bubbles, such as we are now seeing in Braddon, and earlier at the state election. For example, the Government’s plan to lessen traffic congestion by widening the Southern Outlet doesn’t pass a simple arithmetic analysis. The entire peak flow in Macquarie St from all input roads (3500 vehicles/ hour) could be handled by the Southern Outlet alone with two lanes each carrying one vehicle per 2.06 sec (46m apart at 80km/h), within safety recommendations. The problem is too many vehicles in Macquarie St. Widening the Outlet without investment in public transport will worsen congestion, but public transport investment will directly reduce it. It wasn’t thought through.