There is something deeply unsettling about the way governments at all levels are talking about numbers at the moment.
Not just spin. Not just optimistic forecasts or political exaggeration. Governments have always done that. What’s worrying now is that more and more major decisions appear to be built on numbers that either cannot be verified, are wildly inconsistent with other official data, or simply do not reflect the reality people are living every day.
And once the numbers stop making sense, the policy built on top of them stops making sense too.
Take Inland Rail.
The Albanese Government now says the project could cost $45 billion and is therefore no longer viable. That number is suddenly being treated as though it is self-evidently outrageous, enough to justify effectively killing off the northern half of one of the biggest nation-building infrastructure projects Australia has attempted in generations.
But where exactly did the $45 billion figure come from?
The detailed advice underpinning the claim I can’t seem to get my hands on (there’s a summary here). A review only a few years ago already warned of major cost blowouts, so this was hardly new information, but projects like this always blow out.
But no one should be surprised that nation building is expensive. In a country as large and sparsely populated as Australia, it is supposed to be expensive.
Yet somehow we are now being told that spending $45 billion on infrastructure that would improve freight efficiency, reduce emissions, lower transport costs and potentially improve food affordability for decades is unaffordable, while simultaneously spending vastly larger sums elsewhere with far less long-term economic return.
We’ve got plenty of money for other things. We have spent $50b for NDIS just this year. We apparently have $368b for submarines that won’t be delivered for a decade and won’t do a damn thing to make the nation more productive or make people’s food cheaper. And don’t get Barnaby started on how many billions are being spent on his “swindle factories”.
And it’s not even that they don’t like rail, spending $56b on Sydney Metro and $90b on high speed rail for the tiny, insignificant, and already well serviced Sydney to Newcastle link.
The contradiction becomes even stranger when you consider that Inland Rail sits “off budget” anyway.
It’s nerdy stuff, but basically the government doesn’t treat assets like the NBN or Inland Rail the same as an average business, and hides them in a different part of the books. And other than the legends at the AFR, a couple of nerds, and maybe me, no one looks at that huge number being hidden under the dining room table while congratulating the treasurer on their beautifully prepared surplus or responsible budget being served up.
(There’s a decent explanation of how off budget accounting works here.)
So if Inland Rail was already sitting outside the main budget figures, funded by borrowed money not taxpayers, why kill it now?
That is where the numbers start to feel less like economics and more like political manoeuvring. And there was a moment yesterday when I genuinely thought: is this Inland Rail decision pure politics? Is this a deliberate swipe at Barnaby? Because the only parts of the world completely screwed by this is the New England and neighbours to our north – Toowoomba is livid – and south to Narromine.
But actually this is bigger than “f*ck you New England”. Even if that’s what it feels like.
Because the consequences of axing Inland Rail do not stop with one railway line. Entire regional development strategies have been built around it. Inland ports. Freight hubs. Industrial land planning. Local transport assumptions.
Which brings us to the New South Wales Government’s draft Strategic Regional Integrated Transport Plan.
The document is filled with numbers that simply do not appear to reflect reality, and not just because of the 56 mentions of Inland Rail that now isn’t happening.
I know, I’m annoying. I didn’t just jump to the one paragraph that says they’re not planning to reopen the rail line – I actually read the whole thing. And it is a work of fiction with no actual plan to speak of.
I did ask why the numbers don’t add up, but the answers did not help. The good people at the Department of Transport referred me to the “common planning assumptions” of the NSW Government, that are based on 2016-2019 figures from a number of sources (and are all pre-covid numbers) and a couple of other transport planning numbers which are all 2021. That’s nice, but the numbers are bullshit. All of them.
Stay with me here while I get my nerd on briefly. Let’s start at Page 10 in the draft transport plan – key statistics.
Population expected to grow by 11,000 people to 198,000 by 2041. This is repeated again on p.29, forecast 6% population increase from 187,000 in 2021 to 198,000 in 2041, or a growth rate of 0.29% per annum.
Let’s test that against ABS figures.
- The ABS census figure for the population of New England North West in 2021? 185,560. No idea where the NSW Government’s 187,000 came from.
- The ABS population estimate in 2024? 190,289
- Growth rate based on those two ABS data points 1.27% per annum (less than the national growth rate of 1.6% so not unreasonable)
- Projected population in 2041 starting from base of 185,560 in 2021, at a growth rate of 1.27% per annum? 238,836
Difference between projected population using ABS census numbers and the NSW assumptions, on which all NSW Government planning is based? 40,836. So just on population figures alone, the NSW Government is quite literally planning to underservice the New England to the tune of roughly the population of Tamworth.
Even if the New England would be better off without Tamworth, as I’m sure a couple of readers in Armidale are currently thinking, all of us lose if the state government is ripping us off one fifth of the investment, services and support we should get. Literally short changing all of us 20 cents in the dollar.
The jobs numbers are worse, and more blatant – the NSW central planning numbers, again on page 10, 87,000 in 2021 to increase to 97,000 by 2041. ABS jobs numbers in 2022? 157,467.
That number probably deserves a raised eybrow too (although a lot of locals have multiple jobs) – but a difference of 70,467?? At the most charitable, I might suggest that the NSW Government people have confused ‘people in the workforce’ and ‘jobs’, although those numbers don’t exactly line up either.
One a really basic level, there is no justification or excuse for differences this large. That is not a rounding error. That is not methodology noise. That is a gulf so enormous it fundamentally changes how you plan infrastructure, housing, transport and services.
Again, my brain goes to the dark and twisty place: is this intentional? Is the NSW Government deliberately undercooking the statistic so they can justify withdrawing our services and underfunding our communities?
What’s even worse is that all these projections are based largely on pre-COVID planning assumptions and trends. Anyone living in regional NSW knows the demographic picture changed dramatically after the pandemic. Migration patterns shifted. Housing demand surged. Regional workforce pressures intensified. Property values in the New England continue to grow faster than anywhere else in the state, up 15.3% in the last quarter.
Yet governments are still using datasets that effectively pretend none of that happened.
The draft transport plan has a bunch of other stuff that’s just out of date or wrong, like asserting that UNE is the major driver population and employment in Armidale, not the absolutely booming manufacturing sector, which doesn’t even rate a mention. Also, the number of students on campus is wrong, they have taken a figure of 4500 from an international marketing brochure, rather than the University’s annual report that puts it at 3348. It just completely ignores our refugee intakes, asserting that any cultural diversity is from long standing communities. And it says we only need 8500 additional homes – remember, those 40,000 people don’t exist so they don’t need homes, obviously.
Deep breath. Let it all go. Focus.
Here’s the problem: if your starting numbers are wrong, then every conclusion built from them is wrong.
Every plan is wrong.
Every projection is wrong.
Every policy is wrong.
And the whole budget is just a ridiculous piece of fiction.
Governments keep announcing plans, strategies, reviews and reforms, but increasingly the foundations underneath them appear unstable. The assumptions are outdated. The assumptions based on assumptions compound the problem. The datasets conflict. The modelling is opaque. The justifications are selectively released.
Then politicians wonder why public trust is collapsing.
Get the base numbers right, and start again.
End Rant.
Dr RK (Kath) Crosby is the CEO of research and strategy company KORE CSR, former strategist for the Australian Democrats, and holds a PhD in political behaviour. She is also a well known migraine and health advocate, and the Publisher of New England Times and North Coast Times.