Dear Perth Airport,

I have oft ragged on you before, but I must say, my recent trip through the international terminal was surprisingly decent. Since the not-so-great renovation of early ’09, the food sucks less, and the couches (couches!) and showers (showers!) are a nice touch.

Don’t get me wrong, you’re still lame. Copying Sydney’s oh-look-now-I’m-in-duty-free thing is annoying, the lack of facilities for connecting flights saddens me, and public transport, *ahem*.

But my expectations were pretty low, and they were exceeded! (… a little bit)

Sincerely,
a weary traveller.

The media release makes tantalising promises of 10 new trains, more late-night services, and improved bus frequencies (yay!). But there are bigger announcements: apparently he’ll spend $850m (ouch!) on a railway from Midland to Ellenbrook, something that’s been on the cards for years now. And even better, he intends to fix the biggest remaining hole in Perth’s rail system, due north of the city towards Ballajura.

Except instead of actually fixing it, he’s offering up a bus lane, albeit one using new “auto-tram” vehicles out of Germany (incidentally: not a proven technology, although they really are just modified buses).

No offence to Ellenbrook, but it’s got a mere ten thousand people. Compared to the sixty-plus thousand living along Alexander Drive, with thought to how much fun it is to drive that road at peak hour, and assuming the state can only afford one train line … surely the correct place for a railway (or subway or tramway or something) is not out in the sticks?

(That said, two railways is obviously better; they needn’t be that expensive!)

• It’s interesting how much the American news covered Pope Benedict’s visit to Washington and NYC. Admittedly, the former is pretty significant — most previous popes didn’t meet with the president — but then, the president does meet with a great many foreign leaders. (And no, there was no coverage here of the Ruddster’s visit.)
• The situation in Zimbabwe is looking increasingly sad and leaves me scratching my head wondering what can be done … which puts it back to how it’s been for years now.
• I read in a newspaper last week that the Chinese government is “concerned” about anti-Western protests in several cities. Of course, in a country where dissidents are usually cracked down upon long before they do anything public, it couldn’t possibly be the case that the Communist Party was complicit in said protests, or maybe even organised them to counter Western criticisms …
• Speaking of protests about China and Tibet, this photo of the Sydney Harbour Bridge is quaint when thinking that the NSW government wants to ban laser pointers!
• On the proposed waterfront project, oh City of Perth, what are you lot thinking? Wait, are you thinking? That must be it — increasingly it seems the biggest barrier to anything happening in the CBD is members of the council who are bereft of reason.
• And finally I’m a little surprised that the State Government’s appeal against the native title ruling that covers Perth was successful — well, sort of. So much for using the previous court’s decisions as a base to move forward.

Aside from the apology in Canberra, Wednesday’s big news (from the State government) was the announcement of the less-tentative plan for developing and cleaning up the waterfront near the convention centre. The Premier used a(nother) business lunch for the announcement, and his office even organised a flashy Web presentation to sell it!

If it goes ahead as proposed, it’ll be awesome. But that assumes it doesn’t get shouted down on grounds of price — the touted $300m sounds ripe for blowouts. For instance, the pictures suggest a cable car from the foreshore to Kings Park (a superb idea!) which I doubt has been included in the figure.

And then there’s the parts that depend on private investment; the pictures all feature a bunch of skyscrapers (including a whopping big centrepiece looking like 2 IFC in Hong Kong) that won’t get built if the market remains how it’s been the last few years.

All in all, though, this announcement is a nice complement to last week’s confirmation that a stadium will get built, and at Subiaco (which certainly isn’t a bad site). But the even more interesting part of that story was the half-billion dollar museum at East Perth, which (if done right) could do far more for the city than any stadium can. For both, though, I’ll reserve judgement until there are actual plans …

Dear Macquarie Bank,

Please buy Perth Airport. No, really, please.

The current owners are so spineless they’d probably hand over control if you so much as sneezed in their direction.

All you need to do is get your airports fund to weave some of that debt-engineering magic for desperately-needed upgrades — there’s even a decade-old master plan to tell you what needs to be done. Then you could start talking to people like Gulf Air or EgyptAir and set Perth up as a transit point for Melburnians going to Africa or the Mid-East.

This would be far better than the current upgrade strategy: an extra carpark from the airport’s owners, and a patch-up of the terminal owned by Qantas, who announced yesterday that they’re splurging $50m for an entire two extra check-in counters, a single new aerobridge, and a single new baggage carousel. Whoop-de-freakin’-do.

Unlike Qantas management, you’ve shown yourselves able to locate Perth on a map (even if just for your failed Alinta bid; ’tis a shame, since the winning offer is so very messy). Despite the criticism of what you’ve done at Sydney Airport, I really don’t think your management could be anything but better than what we’ve currently got.

Sincerely,
a disgruntled Perthling and airport user

P.S. while I’ve got your attention, have you been speaking to the PM lately? All this talk of hoarding away tax dollars sounds like he’s trying to turn the Commonwealth into an investment bank or something.

• I would care if Kevin Rudd had ever spoken to the military leadership of Burma, or had an audience with Robert Mugabe. But a strip club in New York City? Bah, next there’ll be reports that he visited a casino in Las Vegas. Problem is, I fear this will dent his popularity — but then maybe the coming week’s polls will agree with Peter Beattie, since no one trusts MPs to be upstanding citizens anyway. Also, isn’t it just a little suspicious that it was a News Corporation editor who led Rudd and Snowden into the club, followed by the News Limited papers plastering it over their front pages today?
• Speaking of Robert Mugabe, am I the only one left with a bitter taste at the Foreign Minister’s decision to cancel the Australian student visas of his leadership’s children? Even aside from the “sins of their parents” question, exactly how will this help towards getting Zimbabwe out of its current situation?
• Earlier this week, we had the Treasurer issuing warnings and saying there was no need to panic-sell shares, and today he’s expressing “concern” at the state of the mortgage market. Now I’m just as miffed as every other investor that the market has dropped, but I have trouble seeing what the Federal Treasurer’s action or inaction has to do with the poor decisions of American home lenders. Oh wait, my mistake: this is the responsible economic management we keep being told about.
• Two things that caught my attention yesterday: a fluff-piece in the West Australian about the construction projects planned or underway around town, and a (rather expensive-looking) State Government brochure outlining the new infrastructure being paid for by taxpayers. But both of them miss what I think is the more important discussion — the subtler changes needed, if you will, to our city’s ‘software’. Things like giving priority to pedestrians in the city, engaging more closely with the arts (e.g. using white walls around town as canvases), and actually promoting the small bars that the liquor licensing changes were supposed to deliver …

• This is the revised development proposal for Victoria Quay in Fremantle, and it’s a clear improvement on the original. But it’s still drawn the ire of Fremantle’s heritage lobby (including the deputy mayor) for being too big; it’ll apparently “drain energy” from the surrounding area. Comparing to ships and harbour cranes, this opposition makes so little sense that I can only guess these folks really don’t want anyone spoiling the view from the Port Authority building.
• Speaking of resistance to change around Perth, Charles Landry is back in town and will be speaking with Carol Coletta (of the American group CEOs for Cities) at His Majesty’s next Thursday. The topic is “what Perth can offer the global community — in particular the dynamic, innovative and highly mobile 20 to 30-somethings”. Details here.
• Ten points to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for stating the obvious in their report: those same young Australians are disillusioned with politics, partly ’cos they’re ill-informed, but mainly because they don’t trust politicians. The report goes on about civics education, but nothing short of Orwellian brainwashing will do unless MPs start reaching out to young people and, you know, actually responding.
• It’s interesting to watch as Google develops to be (in some ways) more like a traditional corporation, such as by engaging in political lobbying. But when you’re the darling of the Internet, you use a method that will reach out to the young and the busy — a blog littered with YouTube videos.