Beyond The Sprues
Modelling => Ideas & Inspiration => Scenarios => Topic started by: Volkodav on September 07, 2013, 09:53:18 AM
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In the early 70s the then Australian government investigated cheap finance options from Saudi Arabia and other less traditional sources. Elements within Australia convinced the government not to proceed with this and to attempt to secure finance from more traditional sources, i.e. the United States. This required the Government to cease negotiations with all other parties which the government and its relevant ministers stated had occurred. One of the ministers was lying and had continued negotiations through back channels, he was caught out and charged with misleading parliament which led to a constitutional crisis and the dismissal of the government.
This is history, it really happened, but the thing that is often over looked is what this finance was being sought for. I have only recently discovered that the money was intended to build a national electrified rail system and uranium enrichment / processing plants to boast Australia's energy export program, two items on infra structure we still lack today, almost 40 years later.
This scenario is that either the original "oil money" or the later "US" money finance went ahead without the scandal and Australia was able to complete this nation building infrastructure through the 1980s. The obvious follow-ons would have been nuclear power stations, and a national power grid, improved ports taking advantage of the improved rail.
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Possibly could have seen nuclear powered naval ships most likely subs. A different Collins class?
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;D never crossed my mind.......
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Nuclear power stations plus desal plants equals new Snowy river scheme, no water shortages, no sick river systems.
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Something like this from Greater Australia:
(http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e68/GTwiner/Greater%20Australia/ocscollins.gif)
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national electrified rail system
Railroads through the desert, instead of Road Trains.
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Ah huh, Northern rail link 30 years earlier, Darwin developed as a major port straight into Asia. Australia exporting manufactured goods, from their southern (manufacturing) states to Asia before they developed their own manufacturing industries gaining a firm foot hold and building relationships prior to the Asian booms over the last several decades.
Energy independence, water independence, industrial independence = strategic independance
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Bob Brown would not be feeling the love from you, I'm guessing, Mr Volkodav. ;)
:)
Guy
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Bob Brown would not be feeling the love from you, I'm guessing, Mr Volkodav. ;)
:)
Guy
That's ok I think his husband would have objected anyway.
As an aside I saw him and his husband on the news once and couldn't help but notice that he looked quite a bit like Tree Beard the Ent from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, brings a new understanding to the term tree hugger...... :-[
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As a result of all this infrastructure expansion we could, also, see the removal/non-introduction of the "soft" refugee/asylum-seeker reforms & have them still put to work straight off the boat on railroads (as my father was in 1950), dockyard construction & other infrastructure projects.
The old "hard" system created less of a drain on the Australian coffers than the later "soft" programs & made integration easier, as most felt a certain pride in having done something for the country & usually tried to continue doing so, maintaining a higher work ethic than many later arrivals. they were, also, "forced" to work & live alongside people of other nationalities &, generally, get along with them.
We could, also, maintain a higher intake of said refugees/asylum-seekers, thus increasing the population (if we stopped building cities on prime farming land) to a point where we could maintain a much larger military presence.
:)
Guy
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.... & have them still put to work straight off the boat on railroads (as my father was in 1950), dockyard construction & other infrastructure projects.
...... & made integration easier, as most felt a certain pride in having done something for the country & usually tried to continue doing so, maintaining a higher work ethic than many later arrivals.
well, that worked for the unskilled immigrants but many highly-skilled ones were wasted by putting them to work with shovels, breeding contempt for Australian authorities. Wasn't made easier by Aussie racism either - even my father (English) was told "we can tell you're English by the funny way you walk" & "you have a big nose so you must be a Jew".
they were, also, "forced" to work & live alongside people of other nationalities &, generally, get along with them.
By "they" I presume you mean the Australians here ?
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I mean Aussies & other nationalities.
I've also met many skilled/educated migrants from the era (incl. doctors, lawyers & engineers) who appreciated the freedom Australia gave them in exchange for a relatively short period of (what was in effect) indentured service to the country.
:)
Guy
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Ah, the Loans Affair. Rex Connor, Tirath Khemlani and the real villain, Saddam Hussain. The loan that Tirath Khemlani was arranging was from the Iraqi, not the Saudi Arabian government. It was intended primarily for Rex Connor's pet project - to build a gas and oil pipeline from the North-West Shelf to the South-East states.
It was without a doubt one of several scandals which plagued the ALP Government of Gough Whitlam and which brought it to it's end. Connor was one of the old, "back-room" men of the ALP. He'd come up the hard way and he was as tough as nails but never quite grasped that once in Government, you couldn't do those same sort of "back-room" deals that had carried him through the long dark years in Opposition. Someone on a Documentary recently suggested that Gough's cabinet photos tended to look more like half were the Sydney Race Course's "colourful identities" (a favourite term downunder for the dodgy crims who used to hang around Race Courses ;D ) and other half looked aging Uni students and lecturers who hadn't been willing to gracefully age and who were still trying to hang onto their mispent youth.
If the loans had gone through, it would more than likely have resulted in the country going broke trying to pay them back. If they had gone through, I'd have expected Connor and perhaps even Gough to end up in the dock. It may have build Connor's pipeline but that would have been quite a white elephant IMHO. Electrifying the railways sounds good but for the distances in Australia wouldn't work very well. Nuclear enrichment may have been a good idea but we'd have needed at least 5-10 years to get enough Nuclear Engineers out of the Unis and I don't think Gough would have had that.
I'd also think you'd need to have Malcolm Fraser assassinated. We know how desperate he was to gain power from what he did in real life. He wasn't going to stand still while Gough got all this money from overseas.
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Iraqi money...mmmmm..... does that mean after Australia joins Desert Storm we don't need to repay the loan? ;)
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Electrifying the railways sounds good but for the distances in Australia wouldn't work very well.
Sure it would, if you've got free/cheap electricity - see Russia.
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Iraqi money...mmmmm..... does that mean after Australia joins Desert Storm we don't need to repay the loan? ;)
Nope, we'd have to repay it as part of the "reconstruction" after our foolish involvement in the American "regime change" effort. >:D