INVITED by the Newcastle Herald some months ago to nominate their top transport priorities, the newspaper's readers put a fast train link to Sydney at the top of their wish-list.
Those readers will be delighted at today's announcement by federal infrastructure minister Anthony Albanese that a Gillard government would, if re-elected, spend up to $20 million seriously studying, planning and providing for an east coast very fast train that would link Newcastle and Sydney with Melbourne, Canberra, the Gold Coast and Brisbane.
This is smart politics. An east coast very fast rail link is a major plank in Greens party policy and a pet ideal of transport unions. The announcement will please many voters in each of the nominated population centres.
But aside from politics, the announcement is also bold and visionary nation-building of the kind Labor has been promising since 2007.
The benefits of the project are potentially enormous.
Slashing travel times between cities (making the trip from Newcastle to Sydney take less than an hour) would take huge numbers of cars off the F3 and other highways, would take pressure off Sydney airport by providing a service competitive with air travel and would encourage decentralisation and regional development on a grand scale.
Links to regional airports at Canberra and Newcastle would turn both into viable international air gateways.
Former NSW premier Bob Carr promised a very fast intercity link as long ago as 1998 but failed to deliver. In the context of the broader east coast network now pictured that failure represents a lost opportunity that the federal government must move quickly to remedy.
At some point in the future this rail link will be not merely viable but imperative. Now is the time to nominate the best route, especially through the difficult Hawkesbury terrain, and ensure that all the required land is reserved.
As an economic stimulus the project would be hard to beat, especially since its social and productivity benefits would be virtually perpetual.
The federal government is the right body to plan and build the proposed system, with or without private equity partners. Now the government has publicly backed the idea it must not be permitted to let it lapse.
Record house prices
RETAILERS might be complaining of tough times, but parts of the Hunter's property market are in extremely good health if recent sale price records across several suburbs are any guide.
House price records have been broken during the past two months in Adamstown, Carrington, Holmesville, Maryville, Merewether and Redhead.
Opinions will differ on whether that supports claims of a housing shortage or whether it simply reflects uniquely appealing features of the particular properties.
Either way, those with money in real estate will be glad of evidence that the value of their assets is being maintained.
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