Mordusia

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Massive infrastructure investment barely passes Federal Parliament
A close one for the Yellow-red coalition
March 5632 (backdated)

  

Randworth - Ever since their electoral victory in 5624 the Reform-Labour government has been aiming to showcase to the Mordusian people that their new and more progressive approach to governing the nation brings forth a better future than that of the conservative National Party. One of the things they wishes to do was to support an environmentally friendly way of transportation and make it able for people to travel from and to various places of Mordusia with relative ease, they choice? Public transportation.
 
For years the government worked on a proposal that would invest billions of pounds into public transportation, more specifically an expansion and upgrade of the train network. The idea was that the ever expanding highway systems take more and more space whilst the traffic congestion keeps increasing. The more highways that need to be built to reduce this have a high burden on the environment as lots of plains, forests and such need to be removed. This was the explanation given by the Ministry of Infrastructure under the Reform-Labour government in 5626.
 
The major cities which are connected by the Trans-Seleyan Railway are in fact nothing less than high speed bullet trains which bring people from state to state in a matter of a few hours. However the connection between these big cities, often capitals and the other cities, ports and important landmarks are old, underfunded or only connected by road. With the investment, the government hopes to change this. The plan is to connect these areas through inter-city trains. These trains will bring the passengers to various other cities who aren’t connected to the TSR and from there they can commute through either metropolitan trains, metro’s or busses within the city area or transfer to regional trains who connect the various important towns and workplaces outside the city.
 
The investment plan comes with a detailed plan to bring the expansion of the railroad network into being. For starters the Federal Government will invest and contract building the inter-city and Trans-Seleyan Rail expansion and restoration efforts. At the same time the state-level government will be given money if they submit plans to connect rural areas and other towns and cities to this network with railways, metro’s or trams of their own. With this the Federal Government wishes to keep control of the major infrastructure whilst also giving local governments a say in how the infrastructure within their state can be improved. A feat the Reform Party was very proud of, with it being the party that often supports devolution of powers the most.
 
With a left and environmentally friendly majority in power the thought was that it would be an easy victory for the Coalition in achieving their dreams. However during the debate about the bill the confidence of Infrastructure Minister Bill Kiwi went down bit by bit. Firstly the Wild Life Party began praising the concept after which they sharply criticised the protection of wild life areas and the sacrifices these sometimes untouched areas had to make in order to facilitate humans even more in their greed. They said that the governments plan though better than the National’s obsession with roads it still was nothing more than destroying ecosystems dressed in a green jacket.
 
More criticism came from within the Coalition’s own ranks began to voice their concerns, beginning with the more environmentally friendly Green-Labour group within the Labour Party, of which 5 sided with the Wild Life Party on the expansion of the Trans-Seleyan Railnetwork through the environmentally near untouched mountains on the border with Saridan. Something they find unneeded and unacceptable. Then another group stood up, 9 people from the Coalition voiced their concerns. 2 from Labour and 7 from Reform. They opposed lack of state and local government involvement in the locations of the expansion of the inter-city railways. This group believes that the local governments on the state level have more knowledge of what is needed for what is needed to improve the lives of the ordinary Mordusians. ‘’We are no better than the National Party if we act like this’’ one of the dissenters said.
 
The National Party had a field day with this, their new leader Michael Hewson, said that the ‘’Coalition cannot even agree on anything, plagued by division not only between the two parties but also within their parties as well’’. He went to say that the bill ‘’lacked a vision for strengthening the economy’’ pointing out that the bill had no provisions for including freight, connection to roads for car usage or usage of inland water transport or inland air transport. ‘’A mist opportunity by a government that is too scared and to incompetent to succeed’’.
 
In the end the bill passed with a minimum number of votes, with 176 votes in favour, 171 against and 4 abstaining.