RURAL AND LONG-DISTANCE TRANSPORT

I have just driven nearly 1 000 Km in the past few days to help neighbours whose cars had broken down and also to get a couple of basic medical services for myself – on the way, I dodged trucks obviously being driven under severe time pressures – over roads built and maintained by good workers but on a shoestring budget. There's a bus going in one direction a couple of times a week over in the next town, nearly an hour's drive away .... and that's the sum total of our public transport. Nobody drives a “Toorak Tractor” to big-note themselves around here; once you get off the bitumen, if you haven't got a 4-wheel-drive, you'll be up to your axles in mud as soon as it rains.

So I'm not in a good mood about transport out here in the bush.

i.. how do we get all the petrol-hungry old rust-buckets that are always breaking down off the roads and replace them with free or highly-subsidised small station wagons or vans in a one-for-one direct exchange? If India can have the One Lakh car then why can't “The Clever Country” do even better?

[If you are offended by somebody questioning the economics and purpose of “road safety” then please avert your eyes or seek a less confronting blog]. Now ........

Frequent blitz campaigns by police on unroadworthy cars do indeed get them off the cars off the roads, they do indeed raise revenue – by punishing even more those who cannot afford to pay the fines let alone get their cars up to standard – and they take workers and potential workers right out of the labour market. Now that is really stupid. Since bus companies are flat out making money running services in the bush .... how about some practical suggestions on how to provide transport for people out here in The Other Australia?

Ii,,Roads have improved a lot since I was a kid but we still have to put up with low, narrow, easily-flooded bridges and culverts – and even in 2008, fords! [no, not the brand of car but unbridged creeks and gullies]. Then are there are the problems of poor road drainage and of roads built on foundations that were adequate for horse-and-dray but not for B-doubles. How can we get better roads, roads that need less maintenance?

Iii,, Railways have always been an efficient means of moving large quantities of heavy material over long distance. Many railway lines were ripped up in railway-wrecking craze of the 20^th Century. The wild party is over, folks, so now, before the horrible hangover really hits hard .... how are we going to rebuild and revitalize our railways?

iv. Too many good people have died and too many families have been financially and socially ruined because the bread-winner tried to make a living by driving trucks. We cannot allow this situation to continue. What are we going to do about it?