Herald Sun 3/3/16
By Dee McLachlan
‘Pay As You Go’ — a radical plan for roads was written up by Rob Harris from the Herald Sun yesterday.
The article suggests “Rego fees out in GPS-tracking idea.” DRIVERS would be electronically tracked and charged by what roads and time they travelled under a radical user-pays system to bust traffic congestion. A proposal being pushed by Australia’s infrastructure authority. And the article wants to know what “you” think.
This system would track everyone’s movement — EVERYWHERE. And the article reads like someone wants to test the public’s reaction to this “radical plan.”
This morning a letter (1984 must be kept where it belongs – in the past) in response:
The idea is said to be initiated by Infrastructure Australia.
I went on the site and scanned through the latest report (12 February). The opening sentence of the report:
“Infrastructure Australia (IA) is recommending reforms to the energy, telecommunications, transport and water sectors that will enhance Australia’s productivity over the next 15 years and beyond.”
In the Executive Summary:
Recommendation 6.4: All governments should transfer their remaining publicly-owned electricity generation, network and retail businesses to private ownership.
Recommendation 6.7: Australia’s electricity and gas market should move to full retail price deregulation as soon as practically possible.
Recommendation 6.9: NBN Co should be privatised into an appropriately regulated market in the medium term. [National Broadband Network]
Recommendation 6.10: Governments should define a pathway to transfer state-owned metropolitan water utility businesses to private ownership to deliver more cost-effective, customer-responsive services. [water privatised?]
Recommendation 6.13: Australia should seek to transition the revenue and funding framework for roads to be consistent with other utility networks by establishing a corporatised delivery model.
Recommendation 5.3: The Australian Government should initiate a public inquiry, to be led by a body like the Productivity Commission or Infrastructure Australia, into the existing funding framework for roads and development of a road user charging reform pathway.
The public inquiry should (also) consider:
- The social implications of charging reform, including transitional and distributional impacts of replacing current taxation with direct user charges
- A detailed reform pathway for transition to a full user pays model for roads covering the whole network and all users. A public inquiry into road user charging reform should be supported by large-scale voluntary trials of road user charging options, funded by the Australian Government.
Clearly the proposal needs some fine tweeking.
The number of people carried in the vehicle has to be ascertained and charged accordingly. That may be achieved by a personal computer chip placed in each member of the public. The system would then be able to charge, taking into account the driver plus the passengers…… including of course the kids, in for the ride.
Pets wouid be in a different category and for example; dogs charged, according to their size…………fat/big dogs should pay more.
Absolutely marvelous idea and annual increments in the charges could be applied at will.
I trust that as with other areas of the public’s services it will be privatised and licensed out to capital investors and subscription, bringing in hansome profits for those who may afford to invest. The NRMA demutualisation, tollways, Medibank, Commonwealth Bank, Government insurances offices, the TAB, water supplies, electricity supplies, some hospitals etc. are marvelous precedents to handing the public assets and services to private corporations for their deserved profits.
We should advance further; just sack the politicians and their staff etc., and just privatise the Fedeal Government, the states and local councils and issue shares to globalist fascist corporations.
After all, privatisation is efficient and money saving and we can do without the politicians, as they appear to be close to being redundant in any case, (if not already so) as they just are corporate whores and who would now miss them?
I think our Government is already privatized.
Privatising government officially would at least mean that Australia Inc would have to be admitted.
Chips would be perfect crime control. All those that carry potentially harmful genes could undergo gene vaccine therapy to eliminate all traits of violence… like the vaccine they sprayed over Iraq to reduce “radicalisation”. Exempt of course would be the families of the political class.
Maybe they could introduce a “lying-as-you-go” system in parliament.
Here’s an idea to start with, let’s privatize the people that came up with this proposal and sell them for body parts.
Now that is an idea, their brains would demand a high price and be very profitable and compare favourably with the average politician’s brain. There is a hansome premium on a hardly used brain.
Of course the warn out anus whould not be worth horse #@*+.
What am I bid for a middle finger?
the police – they will be watching us so closely, they will be charging us for every breath we take.. ignoring all stalking laws. creepy.
speaking of police..
I have heard stories about people racking up fines in victoria on the toll roads.. in excess of half a million dollars, and that the courts over there are clogged with hundreds of issues regarding toll roads. ( is the eastlink a private company that can get police involved in their debt collection, or is it government owned, which means we have to pay to drive on something we own? )
It seems that in victoria, they have sherrifs, who have authority to confiscate a persons goods and sell them off to redeem unpaid tolls, and penalties, as well as cancelling car rego, and suspending driving licences? talk about un-australian!
anyway, if anyone has a bit of knowledge about these things, what if a person from, lets say SA drove on a victorian eastlink toll road.. does their authority cross the state borders? – asking for a friend..
Wow. Thanks for that info, Fair Dinkum.
I must read up on this idea of law enforcement doing the work for private companies. I still haven’t understood, in the Boston marathon case, how Sean Collier was an MIT campus cop and yet was a public policeman. Owners of private land have to get their own security guards don’t they?
I am guessing that the answer to your last qq is NO.
My friend advises that they once drove on a Sydney toll road.. being new to the area, and not being in possesion of a mobile phone, or easy access to an internet connected device – was unable to pay any tolls within the allowable time slot… and on return to SA, started receiving letters of demand.. which were sunsequently ignored on the basis of lack of politness I believe.
after a few more abusive threats, a final notice arrived, and my friend thought good! its finally over.. and it was, no more was heard.. ( the same thing happened to a friend of my friend in Syney as well – so it seems they only threaten so much, regardless of location, and then give up )
this however seems to be a different situation to NSW.. in Vic.. they has a sherrif! ( and a posse with a lynch rope probably! ) different laws?
exhibit A: (700 kb pdf )
password: unaustralian
I guess he will pay it to escape the noose.. buy how hard could they choke him? is it a bluff? looks scary…
to think we have enough money in a budget emergency to engage in illegal immoral warfare across the globe, to buy fighter planes no one else wants, and submarines to protect us from enemies we may or may not have in another decade or so..( built by people that may be our enemies? ) but no money for roads, education, health, or to look after the little old lady down the street with meals on wheels any more.. its more than a disgrace..
by the time my friend realised he was on a toll road..( this time ) the traffic conditions, ( boxed in ) lack of local knowledge, no easy way to exit said road.. meant he had no option but to continue..
my friend appreciates all your patience.. and apologises for venting.. but i am left wondering.. what the heck we should reasonably expect in return for all the taxes we pay. licence fees, registration, vehicle sales tax, fuel excise.. gst on tires.. services.. etc etc etc..
in my youth, I hitch hiked all around Oz, did a few laps.. i know im older and uglier, and people are scared to offer a lift these days.. but it might yet become a viable option regardless.
and as far as outsourcing our policing..
serco.. we have private prisons now, prisons being run for profit.. serco security guards looking after manus prisoners.. etc serco doing everything…
in iraq.. ther was a lot of herfuffle about dick cheneys company i think.. mercenaries.. getting into a lot of bother.. doing stuff of soldiers, but without the resrictions., and then when it hit the fan, they simply changed the company name..
halliburton.. blackwater blah blah blah
lock my friend up for driving on a toll road.. and send him to a private prison for them to make a profit? – i think we passed the point of no return a few miles back down the road.. the road ahead looks dogey… its not showing up on my gps..
I don’t follow your logic.
You don’t want those serc-ites in charge?
Then you sack them.
they no listen to me.. law unto themselves.
I wrote up about toll dodger Isabelle Maree Weir. Between July 2008 and December 2013, the single mum (with some issues) had accrued $342,050 in fines, predominantly for unpaid tolls on EastLink and CityLink. Thankfully, Magistrate Pauline Spencer gave this disadvantaged woman a break ordering her to pay just $16,000 over the next 26 years.
http://gumshoenews.com/2014/10/28/the-fats-cats-feeding-the-kleptocrats/
for that price, she could buy the road.. ??
considering the discount, she should be then grateful they only charged her $16,000 to have the audacity to drive on it a few times..
October 28, 2014 – thanks for the link, you ladies deserve a public servants salary.
Man, this is serious business.
Sort of like what we have done to other nations, but now it’s us.
Ima tellin you the weapon is the law. Use it while it still exists.
The law applied is determined by those who hold the weapons.
It is not the public.
Bit different possibly, in the US
My post not up. Ho hum.
Ned these digital thieves and intercepting the comments for sure
To best of my knowledge and experience the fines are state based only…. (for now). See this website for more information – http://aussiespeedingfines.com/ and/or http://www.knowyourrightsgroup.com.au/ and/or http://corpau.blogspot.com.au and/or
larryhannigan.com/
i hope this will help.
Thanks xrbarra2014 – I appreciate your help.
This proposal would be great for inner-city people who drive far less KM per year than their country-based counterparts, who could rack up 100 times more in the same amount of time.
This seems to me more like a ploy by the government to get more people to live in congested cities, AND just another way to make even more tax/theft/revenue that would likely be spent on more tanks and missiles to use on weaker countries in a bid to steal their natural resources. Not to mention the greedy politicians lining their own already-gold-plated pockets even more.
This is not about money (what ever FIAT money is anyhow – just digits on a computer screen), its about control… Its about gathering information about “we” the people and then using it for gain. I have a question why is it that information gained from us or “we” the people then belong to corporations to use and abuse? And they are abusing it already. One wonders why we need to pay registration for traveling in the commonwealth as protected by the constitution? Or why licenses are needed for anything but a commercial activity?
This is a reply to Fair Dinkum
Hi Mary, I remember at the time, the many questions surrounding this event and even if that is the real Saddam, there are others involved in the Iraq wars that should really be swinging at the end of a rope too. From the very outset of this “trial” there was ever only going to be one outcome, for me, this just highlights the injustice of the “law”.
[ It is famous for its precedence in establishing the principle that the mere appearance of bias is sufficient to overturn a judicial decision. It also brought into common parlance the oft-quoted aphorism “Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done.” ]
I dont have to give you examples of cases where not only is there an appearance of bias, it stands up and slaps us in the face, and yet the judicial decisions still stand.
I think my friend is just going to pay the toll.