Abbott can’t win the election without winning seats in Western Sydney. With all the talk about over-population, lack of infrastructure, carbon emissions, etc… Abbott needs one major announcement that covers those issues and would kill off Gillard.
How about agree to help Barry O’Farrell build a high speed rail link for Western Sydney as part of a long-term plan to build high-speed rail between Newcastle – Sydney – Canberra?
Abbott could announce funding assistance for the scoping study, cost-benefit analysis, project office and risk mitigation – which is about as much as any party could be expected to do from opposition.
This idea has been kicking around for years. In fact at the last election Kevin Rudd proposed the idea, but of course it came to nothing. The system would be built, paid for and operated by a private contractor via a tender process.
The existing rail and ALP bosses have been opposed to the idea because it would offer direct competition to the existing slow City Rail, and all the union machination their involvement in infrastructure projects entail. However, former NSW Treasurer Michael Costa was reported to be in favour of the idea.