Victoria - The Failed State.

[thejester]

The Age:

Elsewhere, as Melbourne experienced its worst heatwave on record, there was a fire in suburban bushland and faults cut two high-voltage transmission lines near South Morang. Power was cut to areas from Southbank to as far west as Geelong from about 6.25pm.

Almost 500,000 households and buildings lost power after the nation's power wholesaler instructed power distributors Powercor and Citipower to cut supply. By 10pm electricity had been restored to all but 100,000. Traffic lights, train lines and elevators were stilled in the city and western suburbs.

It gets better:

CHAOS descended on the rail network last night, capping one of the most disastrous weeks on Melbourne's trains in decades.

The rail system's operator, Connex, cancelled more than a quarter of all services, with at least 500 of the day's 2000 scheduled services not running.

Many lines — and, at one point, the City Loop — were shut down mid-afternoon because of train breakdowns, lines buckling in the blistering heat, or power blackouts.

Oh and we're on fire again:

More homes in Victoria's east are under threat from a massive bushfire which has ripped through 6000 hectares and destroyed up to 11 properties.

Up to five of the properties lost on Friday - plus a 40 hectare timber plantation - were in the Latrobe Valley township of Boolarra North, in the state's south-east Gippsland region.

The fires have also threatened properties in the townships of Mirboo North and Yinnar.

Firefighters battling the blaze in Victoria's east will work to build containment lines on Saturday in an effort to bring the bushfire under control.

Incident controller Kevin Petit said two separate fires, the Darlimurla and Delburn fires, had joined to create the 6000 hectare blaze burning in the Strzlecki Ranges in East Gippsland.

Man, when TISM sang in '93 that you could come down and watch 'one man fuck a state' when Kennett was elected, they weren't wrong. To be fair to Jeff, it hasn't helped that the Labor government that succeeded him climbed on the privatisation bandwagon, but fuck me if we aren't seeing the birds come home to roost from such short-sighted policy. The various companies involved are turning a profit, whilst as soon as it gets really hot - as it does every fucking summer - services collapse. Perhaps the most unbelievable thing of all is that the Brumby Gov continues to defend itself like there is nothing fundamentally wrong! It's going to top 40 again today and we'll have similar burst of extreme heat next week - but come winter it will all be forgotten and we'll go through the same disaster again next year.

[Stark]

Jester, its the giverment making this happen. The market isn't free ENOUGH.

[weemadando]

I have actually stopped using public transport in Victoria. I finally gave up on it completely this week when I was stuck at Richmond station for an hour waiting for a non-express train on my line to not be cancelled (as I live near a station that is skipped by the vast majority). There are trams nearby (about a km away) but they are always RIDICULOUSLY busy (as they are on the Box Hill-Docklands route) and there are NO buses servicing this area.

The sad thing about it all, is that it takes 1/4-1/3 of the time to travel via car and costs half as much (as my wife and I work in the same area) - even when factoring in vehicle rego and maintenance.

Public transport is meant to be less expensive in exchange for less convenience of travel. It's not meant to be ridiculously expensive for no travel.

And the fucking finger pointing on this is stupid. Connex blames the Union. The Union blames Connex. Connex then blames the gov't. The gov't says: "here's a plan to fix it - in 2050." Meanwhile the system which has been degrading for years falls further and further into decrepitude as the gov't blows billions on new tollroads and sports venues and encouraging residential development in areas where there is no fucking coverage at all for public transport anyway.

Meanwhile Connex clearly does fucking NOTHING with the money it is reaping in. They say that it's the gov'ts responsibility to maintain the trains and lines. So what the fuck do you do aside from hire a few morons to stand around on the platforms and make the same fucking announcement that your automated system already does? Oh yeah - and blow HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS on a fucking ticketing system that is supposedly super-advanced, but apparently cannot handle the current fare system which is "too complex".

Seriously - fuck Connex. Fuck Lynne Kosky. And fuck the state of Victoria for letting this happen.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Clearly Victoria needs a giant coal industry to subsidise it's public transport system. PS the green HATE that.

[Stark]

Are you saying queensland rail rides on the back of a coal train????

[JointStrikeFighter]

Are you saying queensland rail rides on the back of a coal train????

Why yes sir I am.

[bobalot]

Welcome to the wonders of privatization.

The Rail system is barely functional.

It has been common knowledge in the industry (for a long time) that the private companies do the bare minimum maintenance to keep the power stations and the distribution systems functioning. You can't do this for long periods of time. Proper maintenance needs to be done. However, the private power companies were short term in their thinking, so doing proper long term maintenance was off their priority list. This situation that Victoria now faces was entirely predictable.

[bobalot]

Are you saying queensland rail rides on the back of a coal train????

Why yes sir I am.

QR (Queensland Rail) rides on the back of their freight arm. Which a large part of their revenue comes from coal (How much exactly, I'm not sure of).

However, your implication that allowing coal mining would subsidize Victoria's Rail System is incorrect.

QR is vertically integrated. It runs nearly ALL the freight in the State as well as it's passenger arm. The passenger arm has never really been profitable in Australia (Even in rails glory days before mass car ownership), the freight arm ALWAYS subsidized the passenger arm. QR's vertically integrated model allows the freight arms profits to subsidize the passenger arm.

Victoria's passenger system is privatized. The freight arms are also privatized. They are separate entities. While the private freight companies (Pacific National, United, IRA etc.) pay access fees for use of the rail, this fee is nowhere enough to cover the cost of the passenger system.

It is the same situation in NSW. The State Government sold off the profit making freight arm and kept the loss making passenger arm. The passenger arm now has to subsidized more because it no longer has the revenue from its freight arm.

Other than increased access fees (which barely covers a fraction of the cost of running the passenger system), more coal mining will barely add increased revenue for Victoria's rail system. In fact, there will be increased costs of maintenance from more traffic and heavier loads.

[thejester]

Even more to the point, we built our power planets in Gippsland where all the coal is.

[JointStrikeFighter]

I wasn't actually suggesting that coal was the solution to Victoria's problems, just having a laugh at their expense. But yes QR is basicly funded by moving bulk resource freight.

Sorry for the confusion.

[Lusankya]

Even more to the point, we built our power planets in Gippsland where all the coal is.

Isn't that also where all the fire is? You guys might want to reconsider that.

Seriously, though, isn't "on fire, trains broken and blackouts during a major international sporting event" par for the course in Victoria? The only thing that's missing is a cop shooting some dude.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Even more to the point, we built our power planets in Gippsland where all the coal is.

Isn't that also where all the fire is? You guys might want to reconsider that.

Seriously, though, isn't "on fire, trains broken and blackouts during a major international sporting event" par for the course in Victoria? The only thing that's missing is a cop shooting some dude.

probably a kid or a darkie.

[thejester]

Even more to the point, we built our power planets in Gippsland where all the coal is.

Isn't that also where all the fire is? You guys might want to reconsider that.

Yeah you might struggle to find a non-combustible part of Victoria in summer.

[mr friendly guy]

The only thing that's missing is a cop shooting some dude.

You mean like a white supremacist kid attacking police with knives and getting shot and killed. I am sure that would happen sooner or later. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Public transport is meant to be less expensive in exchange for less convenience of travel. It's not meant to be ridiculously expensive for no travel.

I didn't know the UK was exporting its model of public transport to the colonies. Truly the economy is working great.

[Lusankya]

The only thing that's missing is a cop shooting some dude.

You mean like a white supremacist kid attacking police with knives and getting shot and killed. I am sure that would happen sooner or later. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.

I stand corrected. This is a completely average Victorian summer.

And yeah, good riddance. Fuck that dude.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I stand corrected. This is a completely average Victorian summer.

And yeah, good riddance. Fuck that dude.

Correction: Victorian winter. Silly antipodeans and their backwards seasons. No wonder your society is on fire and stuff.

[Patrick Degan]

So... this is Australia experimenting with existence as a Third World nation, then?

[Lusankya]

So... this is Australia experimenting with existence as a Third World nation, then?

Clearly this is just Victoria's attempt to have the aboriginal and white populations maintain the same quality of living.

Australia's secret to reconciliation: set everyone on fire.

[Admiral Valdemar]

You can partner yourself with California. They've got a lead over you in going bankrupt, though. But cop abuse and fires are all go.

[mr friendly guy]

Come now AV, that was Queensland where they beat up an Aboriginal guy, er I mean an Aboriginal man died while in police custody. Queensland has been Australia's redneck state, although NSW seems to want to challenge for that role. Victoria is a bit different. At least their police knew how to deal with racist thugs.

[Admiral Valdemar]

What's hilarious is the number of Poms wanting to emigrate to the far superior land of Oz (and this was before Australia and those annoying "Gotta go walkabout" ads).

Least you have the sense to blame the government and try and fix it, rather than emigrate here. Now THAT would be comedy.

[mr friendly guy]

As per that other thread, Zac Nolean pointed out

A lot of Brits see Australia as a haven where things are like the good old days.

You know, where you could be racist and get away with it.

I am willing to bet most migrated here for economic reasons, but a lot are quite happy to state in the newspaper they migrated because those "Paki's" came along and took over and implied that was the reason other Brits migrated to Australia. I wish when these people were migrating to Oz they would get lost along the yellow brick road.

Hey, if I were to migrate to the UK, at least I can eat out at Gordon Ramsay's restaurants. Although I don't think I will be able to get a job since your health system gives preferences to EU (re : Polish) doctors who couldn't speak English over those from the commonwealth who can. At least they did a few years ago, which is why these Doctors migrate here and work alongside me.

[Lusankya]

Come now AV, that was Queensland where they beat up an Aboriginal guy, er I mean an Aboriginal man died while in police custody. Queensland has been Australia's redneck state, although NSW seems to want to challenge for that role. Victoria is a bit different. At least their police knew how to deal with racist thugs.

That's one reason why I never want to live north of the Barrassi line.

What's with Sydney anyway? Is it all ghettoised or something? I know that they have places like Redfern, which is basically an aboriginal suburb. Are there other ones like that? You don't really get that kind of thing in Adelaide (except in Elizabeth, but that's poor white people with no hope of social mobility, as opposed to poor minorities with no hope of social mobility).

Least you have the sense to blame the government and try and fix it, rather than emigrate here. Now THAT would be comedy.

Yeah, especially since Britain is pretty much the same culture as Australia, except with TINY houses and worse weather.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Yeah, especially since Britain is pretty much the same culture as Australia, except with TINY houses and worse weather.

Hey now, take that back!

They're small houses.