It appears recently, the Commonwealth Party's PR branch has been kicking into full gear in preparation for a coming federal election. Left and right (I don't mean this in an ideological sense, they're all on the right) we've seen defections and membership announcements from hasbeens and washups alike. One of these appears to be former MP for Sydney arles2464.

There are a number of things I could address if I wanted to, but I'd like to focus on a few things. The ex-MP takes issue with the nationalisation of Medibank and QANTAS, saying that it'll take 15 years on Medibank profits spent to repay the $6 billion spent on nationalisation. I haven't bothered to fact-check that, but let's assume it's true.

Yes, if you judge the nationalisation solely based on the amount of profit it'd generate, it'd be a failure. But that's a dimwitted way of analysing economic spending. The point of nationalising Medibank (and QANTAS, for that matter) is not to generate profit. The point is to ensure better services.

But arles2464 appears to have already thought of that, and suggests a better option instead of, say, buying a stake in Telstra, would be to lower the cost of NBN services...to internet service providers. Yes, if you make it cheaper for ISPs to run things, of course they'll pass those savings onto the consumer instead of increasing their bottom line, because of the free market!

In actuality, arles2464 has missed the point. Nationalising Medibank ensures lower prices for Australians by holding the free market to account. It ensures a cheaper option for Australians and guarantees that insurance companies won't be able to artifically drive up prices in what is very much life-or-death for many.

But anyway, onto the next point. He's wheeled out the standard talking point that the government is "pork-barreling" on the Melbourne-Adelaide railway line. It's a completely ridiculous assertion and one I've addressed many times. Thankfully, however, arles2464 actually provides some reasons for why this is pork-barreling. They're not very good ones, but I can work with that.

He claims that the railway will offer very little economic value, which is ludicrous. From 2016-2017, over 2.4 million travellers flew from Adelaide to Melbourne. While a high speed connection would take about 4 hours and 45 minutes from Southern Cross to Adelaide, it'd also be significantly cheaper.

And while nearly 5 hours compared to the 1 hour Melbourne-Adelaide flight may seem unappealing, when you consider that most travellers arrive at the airport at least an hour early to load luggage and be checked for security, and vice versa on the other side, the comparative ease of the train becomes a lot more attractive. And even if not many do, if only 10% of travellers do (this is only considering one possible channel of transit, by the way), that's still 240,000 yearly passengers for the high-speed rail line.

But he also claims that the cost is woefully underestimated. How can a high-speed railway line cost $12 billion when a highway upgrade program cost $15 billion? Is the government trying to say that they can build a high-speed rail for cheaper than they can build a road? This isn't me using hyperbole, I'm quoting almost verbatim. I presume that arles2464 is referring to the Pacific Highway upgrade program.

This program was a road duplication. Of course it's going to cost $15 billion when you're basically doubling a road. The track from Melbourne to Adelaide already exists, and The Overland has run it for years. Most of the existing railway alignment is already suitable for higher speeds, with only minor upgrades likely to be necessary. Of course upgrading track that already exists to make it faster is going to be cheaper than doubling the size of the Pacific Highway.

So, no, to put it simply, the Melbourne-Adelaide railway isn't pork-barreling. It's an extremely sensible and economically viable plan.