Engineer. Urban & rail transportation - cities - applied arts & sciences - major projects - regulation - competition Tweets represent personal views only
Sydney
Joined March 2010
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Road transport electrification presents a once in a century opportunity to address the user-pays element (currently petrol/ diesel tax) that contributes about half of the direct costs of road spending (including maintenance, administration, expansion, enforcement)
Brewed in Thailand? What is going on… I’m guessing some tax dodge, how can it be more economic that exporting the ligit Pinoy article?
As it happens tastes pretty much right, great lager with a bit more of a hit than I want or can handle these days, but great memories
I’m not sure how many people have this frame of reference (I guess not many). from a combination of family friends and mentors in the building trades, working with them on volunteer projects in my teens, (late 90s), and self-managed flat renos 2007-2017, and having a trade…
The Productivity Commission looked at this in 2025 but failed to make any concrete recommendations on what I think is the biggest problem: culture and training. The gap is too big for apprenticeships to be economic.
pc.gov.au/inquiries-and-rese…
We need to rediscover the post-guild Victorian era formalisation of culture, training and practices in institutions to respond to what is an obvious market failure.
Related thread:
nitter.cf/roodave/status/1911374…
David Caldwell retweeted
One reason politics used to be much more sensible is most politicians (regardless of party) had shared experiences of working very hard in tough jobs or fighting for Australia or both. Deteriorated from 1990s with rise of a frivolous “political” class-who today drive us all mad.
This graph embodies a profound group of policy failures on (excessive) migration, high income tax, high education costs, and collapsed/ defective trade capability and training institutions, feeding collapsing productivity and rocketing costs
David Caldwell retweeted
When I read my first Tom Clancy novel I thought what most dated it, tied it to the ’90s, was its confidence—the belief in experts, the trust in institutions, the faith in technology. I wrote a whole essay about it, I found it so striking.
These days, I think what most dates Clancy is how many of his characters are empowered with real responsibility in their early thirties.
David Caldwell retweeted
In NSW our government has excluded batteries from participating in the next 1.5GW of firming.
In Germany batteries don’t win in the tender…
Batteries can’t replace dispatchable fuels. They’re an ‘and also’.
nitter.cf/footnotesguy/status/21…
David Caldwell retweeted
“Everybody’s profiting.” -President Trump
Except the people who bought his coins...
Trump family crypto earnings: $1.4 billion
$TRUMP meme coin: -98.4%
$MELANIA meme coin: -99.5%
Perhaps the most blatant example of corruption in the history of American politics.
David Caldwell retweeted
Powerful words from Joshua Wong, a freedom fighter being crucified by the barbaric Chinese dictatorship
It has never been delightful, but the current state of the Sydney Town Hall forecourt to station entry is just vile. Graffiti vandalism, urine, grime, (discarded?) possessions of the homeless. What a gateway for the civic centre of Australia’s biggest city
As if David Jones selling its stores in the 2010s wasn’t a bad enough sign, Woolworths selling it to private equity was surely the end of the road. It exists only as legacy brand. The heart and soul: live pianists, choirs, luxury food items, even Xmas displays long gone
Every time I see an image of napoleon i am reminded of a time I was out with a French girl in London c2007, after a few drinks, walking through Trafalgar Square (her first time) she looked up at the column and said “ah oui, Napoleon!” and I didn’t have the guts to explain