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Australian politics.

I'm not caring to get into a post back and forth stoush over politcs especially with our mate Muz :) but the X Gov side bashing and blame is one thing - that no matter which side any average voter like ourselves think WTF they doing selling us out or certain directive BUT let me flip it on another view re China's growth.
I'm sure many of us work in Industries that so so much has changed let alone what commodity we buy be it appliances/cars yaddyadda we use every single day.
I'm in the Auto Parts Industry all my life, due to my car passion/s since a kid this game locally was flourishing from manufacturing.
We know what happenned there eh put aside the Gov and Union gaming, you all also didn't want a Holden/Falcon anymore :( due to them not reading the times re SUV's.
I luv those cars and still own a couple that I cherish.
Look what we pay for cars today.

I watched as time went by 25yrs ago and more Imported car parts coming through from you know where - you know why ? consumers wanted lower pricing even though certain many parts were available aussie made and better quality the consumer sooner pay $15 instead of keeping local paying $5 more.
Workshops would quote the better products to fit and last and wondered many times why the other mechanic was getting the jobs instead of him.
Then it shifted to home appliances/fridges/washing machines/dryers etcetc - awww great we saved a buck but the quality span shifted due to low cost product a dryer today last bugger all years compared to 10/15yrs.
Every single commodity went the same sliding quality slope so as the Retail price was Supercheap ! get that company name, they came to party later and have smashed the ol Repco bastion what it once was very Trade oriented and successful company.
Its still around but nothign like it used to be.

So its all and good we smash these useless dirty sneaky pollies of the last decades but we consumers have contributed greatly to China's rise just as many other countries have/did.

More than ever before I am trying buy more Aussie made as selective as it is today.

Just thought to throw in a different outlook to big over bearing China.
 
Yeah, in gereal, I don't make decisions on price - only if I feel I am getting ripped. With clothes food etc I go for quality generally.

Chinese-made is getting way better.

I have been to China probably just under ten times in my life. I was amazed at first around 25-30 years ago how primitive it was. Returning again about 10 years ago, I was shocked at the development.

At that point it was clear they will take over the developed world in many areas. The progress has been mind-blowing. The city of Shenzhen especially
 
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tsf said:
Yeah, in gereal, I don't make decisions on price - only if I feel I am getting ripped. With clothes food etc I go for quality generally.

Chinese-made is getting way better.

I have been to China probably just under ten times in my life. I was amazed at first around 25-30 years ago how primitive it was. Returning again about 10 years ago, I was shocked at the development.

At that point it was clear they will take over the developed world in many areas. The progress has been mind-blowing. The city of Shenzhen especially
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I was there last year... the quality of their manufacturing has increased 10 fold in just 4-5 years..... :( AND they now have a middle class... The number of Lambos and Ferraris I saw driving around was absolutely astounding....
 
yep China progressed far quicker in the auto game coming in much later after the pioneers firstly Honda when many of you hadn't been born yet in 1969, Datsun came in little earlier then followed by Honda etc.
Our typical general comments and outlook by many was at the time "Jap Crap" but look what they forged in time and the other Jap brands.
Leaders in quality and options, car radios for eg were an option by local Ford/Holden those days, it was standard in Jap cars.
Koreans stormed in with the $9999.00 Excel in 1986, they were ribbish but the entry price was hard to deny, just as China cars of today, you the consumers can't help yourselves, price price price.
They stepped up with accpetance and sub standard half the time the Japs/Koreans did.
In the meantime China was producing plenty cars having had investment by VW and Chev since the 50's.
Gained IP's for alot of those deals ( the CCP won't do any business unless they gain some IP from EU/Western companies interested, hence Tesla doing a deal there some years back helped deliver their EV chinese branded EV's) and as countries like us suffered majorly of inflated Labour costs and goods as you mature the door was wide open for them and many OE's invested in China due to the lower costs, in quick time they reversed engineered very well.
Now look at it/them.

Even my business had to resource from there 20+yrs ago (I have visited China top to bottom and watched the changes over 40 visits at least) with alot of Industry resistance as mentioned due to consumer cost expectations.
I deal with very credible OE/OES factories and the quality reliability is sensational but at the same time amongst some other products I deal contirbuted to shutting down local sub supplier Factories here.
Its a bitter sweet scenario, many many companies are looking to shift the resourcing to Vietnam/Thailand/India/Turkey for eg, I pull alot of product from mexico europe as well.

Here's another recent invasion, least the place is going to be used and employ some aussies but sad - that bastion like Ford (in part) withdrew from the market.
 
tsf said:
Yeah, in gereal, I don't make decisions on price - only if I feel I am getting ripped. With clothes food etc I go for quality generally.

Chinese-made is getting way better.

I have been to China probably just under ten times in my life. I was amazed at first around 25-30 years ago how primitive it was. Returning again about 10 years ago, I was shocked at the development.

At that point it was clear they will take over the developed world in many areas. The progress has been mind-blowing. The city of Shenzhen especially
Click to expand...
A friend of mine lives in Shenzen but spend a lot of time in Hong Kong. The last time we met up was a couple of years ago at an Australian bar in Kowloon, HK called Ned Kelly's Last Stand.

On Saturday evenings the place turns into a jazz club and the resident band will often play the Ella Fitzgerald song 'Slow Boat to China'...

But ironically they change the lyrics to 'Slow Boat to Shenzen'...

I asked my mate why and he said many of the locals in Hong Kong remember in the 1980s when Shenzen was still a small fishing village and you could only get their by small fishing boats....

Now its a 25-30 million metropolis with a 20 carriage bullet train every 15 minutes from Hong Kong Central!!
 
erogenouszone said:
Everyone collectively weeps when they see overseas infrastructure and then come back here.
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High speed rail link Melbourne to Sydney with spur to Canberra ~ $50 billion+

Sydney to Brisbane with stops at Newcastle and Gold Coast ~ $50 billion


And possibly a 10 - 20 year time frame?

Costs would likely triple.

No government would even dare to consider it.
 
Football us life said:
High speed rail link Melbourne to Sydney with spur to Canberra ~ $50 billion+

Sydney to Brisbane with stops at Newcastle and Gold Coast ~ $50 billion


And possibly a 10 - 20 year time frame?

Costs would likely triple.

No government would even dare to consider it.
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Quick check shows Sydney Metro at 25bn. Serves a lot more people in a dense area than high speed and needed to be done. In saying that, these projects need to be like the Harbour Bridge. They're not exactly for right now but for the next 100 years. Idiots in leadership want points now but those fondly looked back on built legacies with their buildings and policies still having positive effects today.
 
Football us life said:
Yep. Sydney definitely needs a fully integrated underground metro.
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Smoother and modernised. Once it gets to Bankstown a lot of areas will be nicely connected.

The light rail is decent and is actually not supposed to be rapid transit. Painfully slow at times though.
 
High speed rail will never be built in Australia. Umpteen studies, umpteen times shows it to be uneconomic. If there were a profitable business case it would have been built by now. Lowest estimates for the thing to even hope to break even would be $300 one way. Will never happen for a million years for a whole host of reasons and that's not even considering engineering challenges like something as simple as fencing 1000kms of rail to keep roos out or having a train travel through the western suburbs of Sydney at 300 km a hour.

It's a non goer and never will be.
 
Muz said:
High speed rail will never be built in Australia. Umpteen studies, umpteen times shows it to be uneconomic. If there were a profitable business case it would have been built by now. Lowest estimates for the thing to even hope to break even would be $300 one way. Will never happen for a million years for a whole host of reasons and that's not even considering engineering challenges like something as simple as fencing 1000kms of rail to keep roos out or having a train travel through the western suburbs of Sydney at 300 km a hour.

It's a non goer and never will be.
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I agree

The first stage of the proposed high speed rail link between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, a 19 km section between Beerwah and Caloundra has been estimated to cost between $5.5 and $7 Billion.

If you took the half way point of the estimated cost as $6.25 Billion it works out at roughly $325,000 per metre.
 
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But an Aussie rules stadium for 1 billion using tax payer money can be built in tassie for a couple 100k people tops. Probably even less people than that.
 
tsf said:
But an Aussie rules stadium for 1 billion using tax payer money can be built in tassie for a couple 100k people tops. Probably even less people than that.
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Oh for sure. Utopia did a bit on that too. (10 years before they announced it.)
 
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