There's Movement At The Station!

Illawarra Mercury

Saturday May 16, 1998

By PETER CULLEN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

They're getting excited in Canberra about the Transrapid MagLev proposal, which is good news for the Illawarra.

The powerful Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union has given Transrapid a letter of support and has come out heavily in favour of the MagLev scheme which, as we all know, embraces our fair city.

Seems the Canberra Chamber of Business and Commerce is also warming to MagLev which is certain to face a hectic challenge from the Speedrail consortium.

However, CFMEU boss George Wason, who travelled to Europe last year with a Canberra businessman and other parties to test both the Transrapid and Speedrail super trains, is now a MagLev convert.

Mr Wason told me yesterday MagLev had all the technological and environmental attractions to take the nation into the next millennium. He believed other systems of wheels on steel offered no advancements and were simply throwbacks to the days of George Stephenson's Rocket.

"MagLev will take us to the cutting edge of technology. I travelled in a MagLev super train in Germany at 420km/h and it was like travelling in a car at 100km/h," he said.

When he returned from Europe last year Mr Wason was noncommittal about the differing technologies.

At the time he said it was not his role to compare the technologies.

Yesterday Mr Wason was adamant. He said he hoped politics didn't get in the road and that the decision makers were impartial and compared apples with apples.

"If they do that the Transrapid bid will win," he said. And if it does, about 11,000 CFMEU members will get jobs over a three to four year period. Executive director of the Canberra Chamber of Commerce and Industry Pam Scarr said the MagLev super train was exciting and many Canberra people favoured it.

"We had an excellent presentation from the Transrapid consortium but we've heard nothing at all from its rivals," she said.

Still, as I said in last week's column, we are a long way from winning both the battle and the war. Sources tell me several members of the Speedrail consortium, one a wealthy Canberra businessman, have contacts in the Howard Government.

The businessman, involved in property development, had the ear of two ministers. Another consortium member had strong links to the former Fraser Government.

We just have to hope politics doesn't rear its ugly head. However, we cannot discount it, given the massive finances involved, and with an election looming, you can bet certain political parties are recipients of sizeable donations.

There could be more deals done than on the blackjack tables of the Star City Casino. If so, it would be tragic and scandalous.

Let's keep shouting for MagLev at the top of our voices, and say a few prayers on the way past that honesty and decency prevails when the chips are down.