Latest news with #4BC
7NEWS
13-05-2025
- Business
- 7NEWS
Toll may be needed to fund vital major restoration of Brisbane's Story Bridge, council says
Tolls could return to Brisbane's Story Bridge as council grapples with how to fund much-needed repairs and restoration. The 85-year-old bridge is in an accelerated state of disrepair and may be unsuitable to carry traffic within 20 years without a full restoration, an independent report has found. WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Brisbane's Story Bridge could bring back tolls. Brisbane City Council has said it cannot cover the significant costs alone and state and federal government funding was needed. If not, a toll could be a 'last resort' to save the bridge. While the power to levy a toll lies with the state government, not council, it is an option council could lobby for if the need arose. 'Without sufficient support from all three levels of government, alternative funding models like tolls will need to be considered,' the council said. Carrying more than 100,000 vehicles every day, Story Bridge has the third-highest daily vehicle volume of any of the city's river crossings. It accounts for 43 per cent of daily non-tolled inner-city vehicle river crossings, the report said, with traffic expected to increase by 10,000 vehicles per day in the next 10 years. Story Bridge opened as a toll bridge in 1940. The toll was abolished seven years later when the bridge was transferred from state government control to council. Reintroducing a toll for the bridge would be a 'last resort', Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner told 4BC on Tuesday. 'Ultimately, if the other levels of government don't step up, that may be the only option left on the table,' he said. 'I'm confident the other levels of government will partner with us to restore the bridge and the footpaths.' While the council regularly maintains the bridge — at a current cost of $3 million per year — a full restoration is needed. That could take up to 15 years — potentially in time for the bridge's 100th anniversary in 2040. Story Bridge footpaths which were closed in March ahead of Cyclone Alfred were never reopened after an assessment revealed they had 'deteriorated at an accelerated pace' and were leaking water through the concrete. Brisbane City Council is fast-tracking protective netting to contain concrete spalling and to 'mitigate potential safety issues', the report said.
Daily Mail
21-04-2025
- Automotive
- Daily Mail
Oscar Piastri's mum reveals the one thing she wishes her son wouldn't do if he is to challenge Max Verstappen to win the F1 Drivers' Championship
Oscar Piastri 's mum, Nicole, wishes her son would be a little more risk-averse when attempting to take on Max Verstappen this season. The Aussie driver zoomed his way to his third victory of the Formula One season on Sunday afternoon in Saudi Arabia and has now gone 10 points clear of Lando Norris at the top of the Driver Standings. Verstappen placed second behind the McLaren driver after being handed a five-second penalty after he and Piastri battled for position at the very beginning of the race. With the Dutchman taking pole position, with Piastri in second, the pair went wheel-to-wheel through the first two corners of the race, with Piastri standing firm and holding his position, ultimately forcing Verstappen off the track. Racing stewards quickly issued the reigning champion with the penalty, judging that Verstappen had unfairly taken an advantage over the 24-year-old Aussie through the first chicane. But Piastri's mother, Nicole, said she was 'horrified' by the moment. 'I kinda wish Oscar wouldn't hold his ground with someone like Max Verstappen,' she said, speaking to 4BC radio on Monday. 'That was horrifying, to be honest. But that's what he does and he will continue to do that.' Since Oscar's rise to Formula One stardom, his mother, Nicole has also stolen headlines for her brilliant comments of support for her son on social media. After he claimed victory at the Chinese Grand Prix, the 24-year-old had appeared in an Instagram reel published on McLaren's official account, playing a game alongside his team-mate Norris. Nicole hilariously quipped in the comments section of the video: 'Once you're done playing games on your phone, Osc, do you think you could FaceTime me so I can congratulate you on your win in China?' But while the young Aussie has been in epic form at the start of the 2025 season, his mum admitted that watching the races can be a very stressful experience. 'It's just the risk, and it's not so much Oscar, it's people around him,' she added. 'There is no sleeping when Oscar is racing at 300 kilometres per hour. 'He's very cautious by nature, and he's very calculated and clever in the way that he does everything.' Nicole used the example of how her son's team-mate, Norris, had suffered a scary crash in qualifying after his car appeared to lose control after the Englishman drove over a kerb on the track. 'He took on Max at the first corner, which was a bit horrifying,' Nicole added. 'But typically, he won't take risks. But you can't trust that those around him won't miss. 'You just can't trust that those around him won't take risks. 'As we saw with Lando, a tiny mistake can be really dangerous. They are only human. 'It's nice that [Oscar's] doing well but my priority is just that he finishes the race and gets out of the car and walks away. If he finishes well that is just a bonus.' Verstappen, meanwhile, admitted after the race that his battle with Piastri over the opening 100m of the race may have cost him victory in Jeddah. 'Yeah, potentially, it is what it is,' he said, when pressed if turn one had hampered his chances of winning. He added in another interview: 'The start happened, turn one happened and suddenly it was lap 50 (the last lap). It just all went super fast,' the reigning world champion said. 'The problem is that I cannot share my opinion about it because I might get penalised also, you know, so it's better not to speak about it.' Pressed on whether he was frustrated by having to bottle up his feelings on the matter, Verstappen responded: 'I think it's just the world we live in. You can't fully share your opinion because it's not appreciated, apparently, or people can't handle the full truth. 'For me, it's better if I don't need to say too much, it also saves my time, because we already have to do so much. 'It's honestly just how everything is becoming. Everyone is super sensitive about everything. And then, of course, what we have currently, we cannot be critical anyway. So, that's fine, less talking - even better for me.' Meanwhile, Piastri's efforts this weekend saw him become the first Aussie to top the Driver Standings since Mark Webber in 2010. 'I'm very proud,' Nicole said of her son.
The Guardian
26-03-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Peter Dutton keeps blaming migration for the housing crisis. But can it really be that simple?
Any way you look at it, and whether you like it or not, migration is shaping up as a major issue for the 2025 election. As Jim Chalmers did the rounds of media outlets to sell his fourth budget, the treasurer was regularly challenged about the boom in net overseas migration since Labor came to power in 2022. While the language used in questions sometimes borders on the hysterical, don't believe what you hear when politicians try to blame migration for the housing crisis. Peter Fegan, a host on talkback Brisbane radio 4BC, quoted forecasts that 260,000 migrants would 'flood into Australia' by the end of this financial year. 'I don't know where 260,000 new migrants will go. I know that they'll work. But we're in a housing crisis. It doesn't make sense to me,' he said on Wednesday. With this kind of emotion, Peter Dutton is keen to capitalise on fears the recent jump in migration has pushed up house prices and rents. 'The other impact Australians are feeling from the Albanese government's poor management of the migration program is from congestion on our roads and pressure on existing services which are stretched, like seeing a GP,' the opposition leader said at last year's budget reply. In a February interview with Sky News, Dutton accused the government of not doing enough to enforce visa rules. 'The Australian government, at the moment, has a sugar bag on the table and is providing incentive for people to stay, not to leave, which is part of the housing crisis that they've created,' he said. Overseas migration surged to 535,000 in 2022-23, or roughly double the average pace of the decade leading up to Covid. The figure was 435,000 in 2023-24. Treasury's projections are that net overseas migration – or Nom – will fall by 100,000 in this financial year to 335,000. That's a hefty 1.3m in just three years. The budget predicts Nom will drop again to more usual numbers of 260,000 in 2025-26 and then settle at a lower 230,000 a year from then. There has been a sharp drop in net migration recently – as more foreign students have headed home – and Labor has tried and failed to pass legislation that would cap the number of new international student enrolments across universities and Tafes. Some doubts remain about whether Nom will settle at the low levels predicted in Tuesday's budgets. Fuelling these doubts is the fact that officials have proved terrible at forecasting net migration (although few forecasters covered themselves in glory during Covid lockdowns and their aftermath – we're looking at you, RBA). So, any way you cut it – yes, net overseas migration has been very strong. Few would argue we are building enough homes to make a dent on housing affordability. Clearly we are not. But has the recent pace of migration made the problem worse, as Dutton & Co have argued? The chief economist at the Centre for Independent Studies, Peter Tulip, is unconvinced. Tulip, during his time at the RBA, wrote a 2019 paper that looked at the impact of the big jump in population in the mid-to-late 2000s. He found it added about 9% to the cost of housing by 2018, or about a decade after the big lift in migration. That certainly sounds like something. But there's a catch: house prices are up 28% since December 2019 and rents are 18% higher (factoring in additional government support), according to the ABS. If migration growth was a 'driver' of those costs, then we should see a much larger than usual lift in the population. But according to the latest budget estimates, the population by the middle of this year will be 27,960,700. That's virtually the same as expected in the December 2019 midyear fiscal update. The population is no larger than we thought it would be before the pandemic. In other words, an unusually large jump in housing costs was not matched with an unusually large jump in the population. So much for a 'big Australia policy by stealth'. As Tulip says: 'If we've gone back to population levels we projected prior to the pandemic, then the change in immigration numbers doesn't explain the change in cost of housing. 'There are two separate policy questions: what should be our level of immigration, and given that, are we providing enough housing for the level of population growth we have decided on? 'The first is a value judgment, and lots of people will disagree. The second question is a technical one, and the answer to that is the housing market is failing.' Brendan Coates, an economist at the Grattan Institute, calculates that were the Coalition to permanently cut net overseas migration to 160,000 a year, from 260,000 a year, that would reduce rents by about 6% after a decade. But, those gains would come at a cost. 'Migrants contribute greatly to Australia's prosperity and shape our diverse society. Skilled migrants in particular lift the productivity of local workers and boost government budgets, raising Australians' incomes,' Coates says. 'Cutting migration, and especially permanent skilled migration, may make our housing a bit cheaper. But it would definitely make us poorer.'
