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A reason to vote...
... sorta!
Abbott in his budgie smugglers may have gotten my vote on the count of being a roadie triathlete but Labor announced the following:
“The 2010-11 budget also included a number of infrastructure measures that will benefit the tourism industry, including:
• $996 million for rail upgrades in areas that will benefit tourism as well as the wider economy;
• $111 million more to assist regions with community infrastructure to support major events, festivals and community leisure activities;
• $12 million over two years for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park; and
• $14.5 million more to develop cycling infrastructure including mountain bike trails.
Full article here: http://accomnews.com/modules/AMS/article.php?sto...
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Oh dear
Of course we all know that election promises and what actually gets delivered are two different things.
Also note that federal government has pretty much nothing to do with the issues faced on the Northern Beaches with regards to trail access - that's all dealt with at state and council level.
Pardon my cynicism but that's likely to end up being reduced to about $1.5 million after the election and of that $1.2 million will be spent on putting together a strategy committee to discuss the needs of cyclists with the remaining $300K to be available as grants for councils councils across Australia to apply for and then of that, councils will put together a management committee and then spend the remaining $2,700 each on spray painting a silhouette of a bike on a few roads and then harping on about the 15km of "cycle path" that they have created.
The reality that it will probaly all go to ACT or elsewhere.
At least its going to the sporting genre we hold so dearly.
If only success was based on promises and not delivery, desperate people do desperate things and both sides are pretty desperate at the moment.
I wish we could vote "None of the Above"
They're all hopeless: the Hard Right Once Were Small-L Liberals whose Big Idea is "Vote for us, We're not Them", the I'll Say Whatever I Need To So You'll Vote For Me's running Labor - both catering exclusively for Redneck Australia it seems, and who think Community is a synonym of Economy and that the phrase "Long Term" means just before the next election.
In the extreme opposite corner, the Loonie Greenies whose idea of economic management is by and large not to get their hands dirty with such sordid matters as money, and who think only they are the only True Custodians of The Environment, and for whom marginal dissent from their views and/or rational debate are synonyms of Denial of The Coming Catastrophe.
As you can tell I'm pissed off with the poor excuses we have for leaders on all sides.
You can vote none of the above: Walk in and draw a smiley face on the sheet and put it in the box.
Are we going to discuss religion next? All this negative talk must be due the cold/wet weather ay?
Shouldn't we be (slightly) happy that cycling infrastructure (and specifically MTB trails) has actually been identified in political policy i.e. not just listed as 'tourism/sporting other'?
).
Call me crazy but I see that as a win for cycling (regardless if they follow thorough or not, we are talking about politics
Apparently I'm the cynical one...
I may be a cycnic but one thing this election has shown me. Politics are totally selfish. Labour will do whatever it takes to get back in - ala axing Rudd. This is about self interest to stay on the payroll in parliament. Neither party is really worried about anything other than themselves. What does this have to do with MTB? If this behavior is endemic in Federal Politics what hope do we have with State and Local representatives to clear up access issues into National parks for mountain bikers? I imagine funding and liability are the main barriers to opening up access - these are getting worse not better. Add that in to a cultural general dislike of biking then we are screwed. I don't hold out any hope for near term conciliation in National Parks. It seems easier for policticians in self interest to ignore the issue. Sadly - indirectly through the collective millions upon millons of tax this group pays - we are not allowed to use our common sense to access tracks that are fantastic for riding and have very little foot traffic in excellent locations so close to the city centre. As for erosion - give me a break - in all the millions hectares of National Park in NSW there are sporadic sections of 1 metre wide single track that have some dirt channels in them. Does this affect materially affect the environment? I doubt it. I applaud all you guys trying to take the honourable route into trying to open up a healthy, postive hobby that - if promoted, will have much higher environmental benefits than what it takes away in "erosion". But I doubt it will get any significant success due to what is sadly part of human behaviour - selfishness. So on that note - ride on.
Such negativity.
Haven't we just seen CTMBC and HMBA both receive grant moneys for mountain bike facilities?
Of course this was under the Dep Sport and rec, which is a state initiative but if there is more money in the till from Federal coffers, whether that be $10.2Brazillionmillion or just $15.35 it got to be a positive
history shows politicians will say one thing and do another once elected( doesnt matter which party they are from)...its the way it is...call me cynical i call it realistic secondly....you tends to need to have money to spend money.... thats all i have to say, i hate politics, cause each party is as bad as the other its like asking you to choose between the devil and satan...one and the same just a different name..
Which party does Mike Baird work for?
Mr Baird is the opposition (Liberal) MP for Manly. He's a state pollie:
http://www.mikebaird.com.au/
Amen! These nutbags are seriously dangerous....watch where your preferences go in the Senate!!!!!!
Mildly amusing cometary:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/election/things...
This part is gold:
You can't take politics too seriously. No... really... you can't!
Labor on occasions do deliver on "some" of their election agendas.
Coincidentally, I work in the same building as the labor council building and sharing the same coffee shop as KRudd and Kenneally has its perks such as sprays about how shit our MTB network is ... and also transport agendas were thrown in.
The shifts in political parties each election term seems to be Labor/Liberal/Labor/LiberalLabor/LiberalLabor/Liberal excluding the Howard regime period. One term makes money, the next term spends it
At the end of the day, the Libs are the economic managers (ie. money makers) wit the Labs being the social managers (ie. spenders)
So it comes down what you hold more dearly?
MTB trails or a better economy
Thats how I view it
Simplicity at its best!
@flubberghusted? You're kidding me, right?
Almost one year after meeting the state labour minister for the environment (who also happened to be the deputy minister at the time) and being promised the National Parks cycling policy would be reviewed, and in follow up being promised there would be a pilot network of MTB tracks in our region guess what has happened? Yup - SFA!
What irks me most about this is that in all that time people continue to ride single track in Thredbo, in Glenrock, at the Oaks and in the Royal National Park. Other NSW parks have provision for single track in their PoM documents too. The RNP continues to have great staff who organise regular trail maintenance days that riders attend to care for the trails they ride.
The NPWS ranger who we met with on Monday night was lucky I wasn't reminded of how good the guys in RNP have it until the next day (when yet another maintenance day was announced) as I barely bit my tongue while he rolled out the same old excuses of policies and, "This is a first - we have to get it right" rhetoric. It's not a first, it's been done before, it's happening 40 kays South of here and about 140 kays North.
As usual it's easier for a politician and authorities to keep a status quo on 'controversial' matters such as MTB access.
All of this has nothing to do with the federal election of course as I said before - our issues are with state government and local councils. That said, they are all the same party - I'd like to see federal Labour punished for the sins of their state colleagues. Yes, the alternatives might be just as bad but if you don't punish bad government where's the incentive for one of the parties, one day, to actually honour some of their promises?