For over 150 years, governments found ingenious ways to avoid building a cross-continental railway line to connect Adelaide, South Australia with Darwin in the Northern Territory. The rail line made sense, but crossing 3,000km of some of the harshest deserts on Earth made it costly. As a major project, it was politically unfeasible simply because the political party that started it would probably be out of office by the time the line was completed. There’s not a lot of long-term thinking in Australian Federal politics. Anything that takes longer than three years just isn’t worth it. After all, why let the next guy take credit for something that you started? That’s been the basic problem.

They made a start early last century, but only made it from Adelaide to Alice Springs. So, for 70 years we had a train that stopped in the dead centre of the country, then turned around and came home again. Freight from the south had to be carted by road to the seaport of Darwin. Fresh produce bound for the Asian markets had a long bumpy ride.

The whole concept of extending the line from Alice Springs to Darwin became a long abandoned political football. That is until 2001. Suddenly, Prime Minister John Howard announced that the line would be completed – and quickly. Most Australian’s regarded this announcement with well-founded scepticism. We waited for the inevitable backing down. To our utter amazement, John Howard stuck to his word. With joint funding from the Federal, South Australian and Northern Territory governments, the line was built, and in record time.

Anyone who reads my work will know by now that I am not John Howard’s biggest fan. However, in February 2004 as the first freight train to Darwin pulled out of Keswick Station in Adelaide, I was prepared to eat my words. I firmly believe in giving credit where credit is due. And John Howard had delivered a $AUS 1.3 billion railway.

This was good news all round. Now the fresh produce providers of South Australia and Victoria could get there products quickly and cheaply to Asia. The construction company Kinhill would make a great profit. Good news for Australia.

That was February, this is March 2004. Already it has been revealed that the freight line is a dead loss for actually shifting freight. Most of the fresh produce which it carried in it’s first month was destroyed in transit. Put simply, the line is too bumpy and the fruit and vegetables, etc become bruised and smashed regardless of how carefully they were packed. Not much is being said about this at present, but the line is carrying only 30% capacity.

It made me wonder why John Howard was in such a rush to spend so much money on this railway line, particularly at a time when basic services such as health and education are being slashed. And he doesn’t seem at all upset that the line is a complete dud for carrying freight. Sure, it also carries passengers, but this will never make a huge financial return.

Then the penny dropped. On March 3, 2004 the Minister for Defence, Senator Robert Hill, made an announcement to the media. “The Army will use the Darwin – Adelaide railway to move 35 armoured vehicles to Port Augusta for a training exercise.” It seems the line is just perfect for transporting Leopard tanks. Why didn’t I think of that? Senator hill continued, “The railway is a vital part of our national security, improving the mobility of the Australian Defence Forces and helping us to overcome the strategic isolation of our northern military bases.”

Anyone who read my article in the March 2004 issue of WING Magazine entitled “Give Aussies A Vote” will remember that these northern military bases are frequented primarily by United States military forces. Think about it.

As I write, a massive training exercise is going on at Cultana military base near Port Augusta. On the second day of the exercise, South Australia was blacked-out by a power outage. The source of the outage was the inexplicable sudden loss from the grid of over 750megaWatts of power from the Port Augusta region. This is not a case of too many pie-warmers at the local church fete. Whatever they’re using up there, it was big enough to blackout 40% of the state in one hit.

Perhaps I’m drawing too long a bow. Here’s what I see. We have a very expensive rail line that is not suited to it’s stated purpose. The line does suit heavy military purposes and is already being used as such. Could John Howard have had this line built just for military purposes?

Still unconvinced? Here’s one more piece to the puzzle. Contrary to the media hype, Kinhill is not an Australian company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of KBR. According to it’s website, KBR is “the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton”!

The company that gave us the Iraq War has now built us a railway line. Do you see now why I’m afraid?