Engineer. Urban & rail transportation - cities - applied arts & sciences - major projects - regulation - competition Tweets represent personal views only
Sydney
Joined March 2010
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Road transport electrification presents a once in a century opportunity to address the user-pays element (currently petrol/ diesel tax) that contributes about half of the direct costs of road spending (including maintenance, administration, expansion, enforcement)
It's nice that Reece Martin is or was in Sydney giving us some high praise. But I think he probably needs to spend some time on Sydney's buses before extending to many accolades. The metro is excellent, the trains are good, but most of the difference leaves a lot to be desired
Good by anglo-american standards, yes, but best in the English speaking world? compared to Hong Kong? Singapore? London? try telling someone in swathes of inner suburbs with an hourly evening bus frequency that 10mins after their bus didn't show
David Caldwell retweeted
The people who run Australia's economy always say we need to import workers because of "skills shortages".
But it is exactly those people - our economic policymakers - who have a shortage of skill.
Their counterparts in Taiwan have done a much better job over the last 20 years.
For nearly two decades, Australia’s politicians and bureaucrats have struggled to deliver strong productivity growth and rising living standards. Instead, they have largely relied on population growth to increase the size of the economy.
This demonstrates a serious lack of skill. So, in this case, perhaps we should look overseas for people who have the skills we need. Fifty really sharp operators should suffice.
I have a suggestion about where to look: #Taiwan.
Article | spectator.com.au/2026/11/aus…
I learned today of the quiet, unannounced passing of an old friend of my late father's, who I contributed to various community projects with. She and her husband lived in a Watsons Bay depression-era alms house, quite like the house I spend my first 8 years in. End of an era
I knew her as a supporter of my late father's protest organisation at USyd against removal of Sydney's trams, she was the first woman economist on the Wheat Board, I think first female mayor of Woollahra LGA, and the first woman Commonwealth Grants Commissioner
I’m not sure how many people have this frame of reference (I guess not many). from a combination of family friends and mentors in the building trades, working with them on volunteer projects in my teens, (late 90s), and self-managed flat renos 2007-2017, and having a trade…
We need to rediscover the post-guild Victorian era formalisation of culture, training and practices in institutions to respond to what is an obvious market failure.
Related thread:
teapawt.net/roodave/status/1911374…
The current trajectory of the Australian Reserve Bank, punishing a small subset (primarily Gen Ys with families and big, recent, family home loans), also being punished by fiscal policy/ redistribution, seems like a bit of a turning point for the "regulatory state" megatrend
I think we remain on track for this to come to fruition. The whole concept of independent monetary policy has just enabled the state to outsource blame and be reckless with fiscal policy (taxing, spending, politicisation, winners and losers) teapawt.net/roodave/status/2059394…
I think the whole independent monetary policy thing, like other parts of the 1980s-> regulatory state, having (once) a kernel of usefulness, is to a large degree a sham to abrogate responsibility, as in "independent regulation" generally teapawt.net/roodave/status/1310116…
