Clem7 (Brisbane) toll tunnel broke

I agree, we all pay Fuel Excise Tax, GST Tax, Registration, Stamp Duty on Motor Vehicle Insurance and still we have to pay Tolls to use the roads ect, wouldn't it be nice for the Government to use some of this money from the proceeds of all this Tax to have decent roads and Free Roads and Hwys, Nah I'm just dreaming.

Alloy,

i don't particularly like the idea of this tunnel and have never used it but how does the company's bankrupcy going to affect taxes etc. Why would any government organisation bail out the tunnel people.

When it goes broke it will simply be sold to the highest bidder.

Rob , what do think will happen when nobody buys it because nobody can ever make enough money out of it to service the debt ? BCC ,State Gov or Federal will be forced to take it over , and then we all pay thru our increased rates ,rego or taxes to bay the debt.

The new owners won't have the debt. The current share holders will do their dough, the new owner will buy it cheap and turn a nice profit.

What do you mean nobody buys it? The price keeps going down until somebody buys it. Even if it is for $1. If you are bankrupt, you don't have a say how much your assets should be sold for.

The best thing that could happen is that the state government or the council buy it for a fraction of the cost that it is worth.

here we go

You are all forgetting one aspect of the Clem 7 debacle , Bcc and the state govt are major share holders and no matter how much $ it sells for to either private or public company just the general upkeep will cost $$$$$$ ,so toll or no toll we will ALL pay. No different to the debacle of the toll rd on the sunshine coast , no one using it so scrap the toll and have everyone pay for it thru consolidated revenue ----- we will ALL pay whether we use the tunnel or not.

If it is anything like NSW there will be a State government guarantee of a minimal income.
If it is not meet than the State must top up.
This is even after the state government has redirected all traffic into the toll road with changes to surrounding roads and reducing lanes.

Honky

Alloy,

Don't be so alarmist.

From what I know what you say is not true. I don't think the state goverment has any interest in the tunnel but if so it is similar to that of the council. The council has contributed from memory $750M to its construction but is not a shareholder. So the bankrupcy of the company operating the tunnel has no effect in their investment.

The cost of the upkeep of the tunnel will fall upon the new operator and not the council. Obviously the new owners will take in the cost of the upkeep when they make a bid to buy it. I am not sure why you think WE WILL ALL PAY, till or no toll.

You are also not correct about the sunshine motorway. The road was built as a toll road by the state govenrment. The local residents protested that they shouldn't have to pay for basic infrastructure. The opposition proposed to scrap the the toll if they won government. Which is what happenened and there has been no toll on that road since then.

The result of the sunshine motorway debacle (as you put it) is that the government is no longer willing to build toll roads. That's why they get private companies to do it.


...and honky; there are no minimal income clauses in the contract. That's why they're going under.

R.

Rod , alarmist ? , No , just being practicle , no matter who what when buys/ bails out the Clem 7, even if for a lousy 10c ,they will be looking to recoup the $$$ required for the upkeep and maintenance , that means keeping the toll , people have no desire to pay the toll now , what makes you think people will pay the toll for "new"owners , there is no money in owning a toll rd / tunnel that the public will not use due to cost , lowering the cost of the toll on Clem 7 to even $1 would be futile as that amount would not cover maintenance /ongoing costs , ergo ,sooner or later we as Qld taxpayers and /or Bcc rate payers will be paying for the tunnel , Yes Bcc put $750m towards construction , Where do think that came from ? Borrowings that rate payers now pay thru their rates , We will all pay.

Before I go on I have to say that I don't like the tunnel.. I didn't like the 3 years of traffic nightmares caused by its construction. I don't like the smoke stacks. I think the $750M spent by the council could've been spent better and I don't like the mayor trying to buy himself a place in Brisbane's infrustraucture history with his "congestion buster" methods.

Having said that, currently on average of 25 000 vehciles pay $3 to use the tunnel. The new owner would know that their income is just under $30 000 000 a year and would make a proposal based on that.

As you have not indicated why you think the $30M would not cover the maintanance, I will assume that you just made that up to make a (hollow) arguement.

R.

Rob,

The figures allocated to Operational and Administrative Costs (7.5.8)amount to $30.7M annually (initally) as per their PDS, which may not change greatly with a change of structure.

Andrew

Excellent. Finally some real stats. Thanks.
So the current usage is just short of covering the mainatance costs.