Minns has already been outed that he cannot show how he will pay for any infrastructure anyway, whatever that is he has planned. Which is nothing.
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https://www.freshstartplan.com.au/roads-and-transport/
Absolutely hilarious.
Just on this point.
If the current government is already planning to spend tens or hundreds of billions on infrastructure, then why would that same money not be available to an alternative government?
The whole where's the money gonna come from thing has become little more than a meaningless trope, either they get it from general revenue, or they borrow it. In terms of infrastructure in particular, if the project doesn't provide enough benefit to justify borrowing the money, then it doesn't provide enough benefit to spend the money at all.
If alternatively it's being raised as part of a PPP, then the private sector sees value in ROI in their stake in the project. Particularly if the risk in the project is all worn by the government at any rate. If there is a viable return, then the PPP isn't really needed financially, as the return would generally have to be in excess of the bond rate in order for it to be at all an attractive investment.
Further if the government isn't borrowing to pay for any given project, it's taxing it's citizens to pay for it. Of course if the project doesn't provide a return it 's taxing to repay the borrowings.
What irks me though is that once you you have a project that does make a return, is that return is little more than a deferral of tax to the folks that use it at any rate. So we get asset recycling, where the government can build shit, claim it has no impact on the budget, and they won't need to raise taxes, because at the end of the day, the "deferred tax" is paid to the private sector instead, and realised as profit.
From that I think it reasonable to assert that the current status quo is that the governmant lays claim to building much of this infrastructure by being little more than a facilitator of the private sector, and in doing so transfers what would otherwise be taxes, into what is now profit, essentially gifting the private sector the same guaranteed income streams as taxes are for the government.
An example of how ridiculous this is, is Minns policy on limiting the amount of tolls you will pay, and the reality that it will cost the state billions of dollars. It's perverse because what it amounts to is a tax cut, being funded by taxes ( yeah, what the f**k? ), that then props up private sector profits. What's wrong there is not so much the policy itself, rather that there is any need for the policy to exist in the first place.
thesydneyinstitute.com.au
www.abc.net.au
www.railjournal.com
www.freshstartplan.com.au
theconversation.com
