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Re: State Elections

Reply #135 –
I've been to many an overseas city, and i reckon i've used the rail from the airport in every one of them.

Not sure if i'd use the one in Melbourne now, but it definitely would've been handy in the past.

The best way for me to get to the airport previously from the northern suburbs was to catch a train/tram to the city and then the skybus to the airport.....or catch a cab (5 times the price) or an uber....but that wasn't around back in the day.

How does it help Victorians? Tourism. Interstate/overseas people spending money in our city benefits those who live in it.

Re: State Elections

Reply #136 –
Quote from: Gointocarlton on
East West Link? $1.1B to not build it, then announced the western distributor which costs have blown out to the shizenhousen.
I've spoken about this before, but Dan cops a lot of flak for this....usually from Liberals or lib voters.

Looking at the timeline/history of it paints a very different picture.
Libs did the budget for it and said it would cost 4bn and pushed it through quickly right before Dan got in power.
Dan and co looked at it and said the whole project would actually cost 20bn. So he had a choice. Go ahead with someone pushed through from the opposition and deal with the expected 16bn cost overrun he had no control over
or
spend 1bn to void the contract and spend the rest of the money doing things deemed more important....eg rail crossing removal.
Now i hazard a guess that everyone on here has seen the benefit of that on our roads.

What would you have done in the same situation?

Re: State Elections

Reply #137 –
East West link would have been nice.
2012 HAPPENED!!!!!!!

Re: State Elections

Reply #139 –
Quote from: kruddler on
I've spoken about this before, but Dan cops a lot of flak for this....usually from Liberals or lib voters.

Looking at the timeline/history of it paints a very different picture.
Libs did the budget for it and said it would cost 4bn and pushed it through quickly right before Dan got in power.
Dan and co looked at it and said the whole project would actually cost 20bn. So he had a choice. Go ahead with someone pushed through from the opposition and deal with the expected 16bn cost overrun he had no control over
or
spend 1bn to void the contract and spend the rest of the money doing things deemed more important....eg rail crossing removal.
Now i hazard a guess that everyone on here has seen the benefit of that on our roads.

What would you have done in the same situation?

Are you sure of these figures? Where did you find 20bn? Many suggested figures show 1.78bn initially and a recent calculation of 4.8bn. It didn’t blow out that bad. It couldn’t blow out by 16bn unless he planned to by another country to use as a venue to host some of the events. 20 billion dollars, or cents. Sorry for the sarcasm but I can’t see this as a possible realistic estimate. 3 to 4 times more than any Olympic event ever held in history and some countries needed major infrastructure spending in the past (Olympic event, not Commonwealth Games). Major to say the least. Considering we have many venues available as we speak. Swimming, diving, track and field, velodrome etc. All used in international competitions and credited by international standards. So where was all this money going to be spent? What needs 20 billion dollars invested into? You stated 20 billion not me. I thought it was shy of 5. Maybe you found more than I am aware of. Not having a go, but 20 billion is simply ridiculous. 20 thousand million is more money than any country could spend. I might do more internet research on this.
This digital world is too much for us insects to understand.

Re: State Elections

Reply #140 –
Quote from: Mantis on
Are you sure of these figures? Where did you find 20bn? Many suggested figures show 1.78bn initially and a recent calculation of 4.8bn. It didn’t blow out that bad. It couldn’t blow out by 16bn unless he planned to by another country to use as a venue to host some of the events. 20 billion dollars, or cents. Sorry for the sarcasm but I can’t see this as a possible realistic estimate. 3 to 4 times more than any Olympic event ever held in history and some countries needed major infrastructure spending in the past (Olympic event, not Commonwealth Games). Major to say the least. Considering we have many venues available as we speak. Swimming, diving, track and field, velodrome etc. All used in international competitions and credited by international standards. So where was all this money going to be spent? What needs 20 billion dollars invested into? You stated 20 billion not me. I thought it was shy of 5. Maybe you found more than I am aware of. Not having a go, but 20 billion is simply ridiculous. 20 thousand million is more money than any country could spend. I might do more internet research on this.
We are talking about different things.
I'm talking about the east West link

Re: State Elections

Reply #141 –
Quote from: kruddler on
Personally, i never would've used it.

Its a bit like TDK though. The price tag doesn't fit the benefit. ;)

I will probably never use the tunnel they're boring in the west but I'm sure it's very much needed.
2012 HAPPENED!!!!!!!

Re: State Elections

Reply #142 –
Big things like tunnels always seem expensive up front, then once they are completed up and working people usually start asking why it took so long to happen, or that it should have happened years ago!

Same applies to sporting talent.

Some people are pessimists while others are optimists, the position taken in various debates is more dependant on that than any selected facts.
The Force Awakens!
 

Re: State Elections

Reply #144 –
100 percent EB - and we all know it's easier to constantly tinker with infrastructure and keep his union mates in well paid work while hospitals languish.  Hospitals cost a bomb but we can't find the staff to man them because the feds have gutted the higher education sector...we can barely staff the hospitals we already have.
DrE is no more... you ok with that harmonica man?

Re: State Elections

Reply #145 –
Quote from: Professer E on
100 percent EB - and we all know it's easier to constantly tinker with infrastructure and keep his union mates in well paid work while hospitals languish.  Hospitals cost a bomb but we can't find the staff to man them because the feds have gutted the higher education sector...we can barely staff the hospitals we already have.

We can't staff hospitals.
There is a major shortage in the Building and construction industry.....where is everybody working??

Re: State Elections

Reply #146 –
Because all the kids today are influencers or baristas
DrE is no more... you ok with that harmonica man?

Re: State Elections

Reply #148 –
Quote from: Professer E on
Because all the kids today are influencers or baristas
Because kids these days are taught to complain, protest, invent genders and run on fields with orange dirt instead of working hard and using their brains to solve the worlds problems.
2017-16th
2018-Wooden Spoon
2019-16th
2020-dare to dream? 11th is better than last I suppose
2021-Pi$$ or get off the pot
2022- Real Deal or more of the same? 0.6%
2023- "Raise the Standard" - M. Voss Another year wasted Bar Set
2024-Back to the drawing boardNo excuses, its time

Re: State Elections

Reply #149 –
To understand the folly of Victoria’s aborted Commonwealth Games, the best place to start is the freshly rendered streets of Armstrong Creek. It is here, in a colony of new housing estates clumped halfway along a road that runs between Geelong and the Surf Coast, that Australia’s best swimmers would have ruled the pool in 2026.

To make this happen and bequeath to a fast-growing, aspirational community what the Andrews government promised would be a “long-lasting and world-class venue,” the Victoria 2026 organisers were given a blueprint that, if not so far-fetched, would read like satire.

The state would spend $111 million on an architecturally designed aquatics centre with two 10-lane, 50-metre, internationally accredited swimming pools, a diving pool and enough temporary stands to seat spectators, officials, sponsors and media at one of the most popular events on the Games program.

Once the closing ceremony had been held down the road at Kardinia Park in Geelong, both 50-metre pools would be yanked out of the ground, the stands pulled down and a permanent building constructed around the diving pool. This would leave the young families of Armstrong Creek and neighbouring communities with a modest, 25-metre pool for their kids to take swimming lessons, cool off in summer and perhaps dream of being the next Emma McKeon

This was the plan until the early hours of Tuesday, when lawyers representing the Victorian government informed an unsuspecting Commonwealth Games Federation that they were scrapping the entire show. But it wasn’t the plan conceived by the people who put together Victoria’s Games bid, nor the brainchild of anyone in Victoria 2026 or the Office of the Commonwealth Games; the twin bureaucracies established to deliver the ill-fated event.

The idea of holding the swimming at Armstrong Creek purportedly originated from deep within Premier Daniel Andrews’ office, sometime between April and July 2022, for reasons that appear to have more to do with making an electoral splash than staging the best event or even satisfying the government’s stated purpose for hosting the Games – to create a tangible legacy for regional communities.

The original plan was for the swimming to be held at an existing aquatic centre at Kardinia Park. This is why, on March 1, 2022, Dame Louise Martin and Katie Sadleir from the Commonwealth Games Federation, Ben Houston and Craig Phillips from Commonwealth Games Australia and Visit Victoria chief Brendan McClements – the person who had pitched Victoria’s bid three months earlier – travelled to Geelong with senior government bureaucrats to tour that site.

This is the plan the City of Greater Geelong council supported. At the time, Games planners had a new gymnastics venue pencilled in next to the pool. This would have established Kardinia Park as a central Games precinct and, after the event, given the neighbouring Geelong Football Club access to a high-roofed, indoor training

“When we went to candidature it was in the bid,” said a member of the organising committee, speaking anonymously because they were not authorised to speak publicly about the venue deliberations. “At some stage, the venue plan shifted to building this facility to Armstrong Creek. When we found out what they were actually building, it was quite bizarre.”

Another Games official, also unauthorised to speak publicly, said there were space constraints at Kardinia Park that would have made it difficult – though not impossible – to fit everything in. Before the proposal was costed, organisers received word from Spring Street that the swimming was shifting to Armstrong Creek. “It was driven by government, undoubtedly,” the official said.

Why did Andrews want to stage an international swimming event in Armstrong Creek rather than at a central Geelong location which already had a 50-metre pool, was close to a train station and had a proven record of being able to handle large crowds?

“We promised a new aquatic centre in the growing community of Armstrong Creek to make sure that, rather than upgrading an existing pool at Kardinia Park, the legacy benefits will remain for generations of families – and that’s exactly what we’ll still deliver,” a spokesperson for the premier said on Friday.

Another clue may lie within last year’s state election campaign.

Kardinia Park is located in the electorate of Geelong, a safe Labor seat held by a 10 per cent margin before last year’s election. Armstrong Creek is located in the neighbouring electorate of South Barwon, a seat held by Labor’s Darren Cheeseman on a margin of just 3 per cent before the election and a seat the Liberal Party had to win if the Coalition hoped to return to power.

It was not until October 29, two days before Victoria entered its caretaker period ahead of the November election, that the Andrews government formally announced the swimming and diving would be staged at Armstrong Creek. It pledged to spend $300 million on the aquatics centre and a new gymnastics and weightlifting stadium at Waurn Ponds. On election night, South Barwon delivered the largest swing to Labor of any seat in the state.



2012 HAPPENED!!!!!!!