7 Aussie Towns That You Would Never Have To Drive Through If Our Country Had High-Speed Rail

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

When you combine the most crowded flight path in the world (BNE>SYD>MEL), with the fact that Sydney Airport is now subject to a 11pm curfew imposed by rapidly gentrifying local council, home to people who feel entitled to complain about the fact that they can hear aeroplanes from their bedroom in a house they bought next to an airport… Australia’s air traffic is getting out of control.

Enter the recurring pre-election high-speed rail conversation. Labor is saying yes, but mainly because the Coalition is saying “not sure wbu”

It’s easy to talk about, but its going to be hard to implement.

A high-speed railway from Brisbane to Melbourne, via Sydney, would require a lot of land clearing. And in the most populated seaboard of Australia, this could easily result in the loss of several townships, both inland and coastal.

Here are the 7 Australian towns that The Betoota Advocate feels could use a high-speed rail line going through the middle of them.

1. Goodna, QLD

ABOVE: The Goodna RSL - this marvel of architecture is the best thing about Goodna

Goodna is a shithole town on the eastern edge of the City of Ipswich in Queensland, Australia.

The area is famous for pioneering the mohawk-mullet style haircut (Karmicheal Hunt circa. 2003)

Goodna sits on Jaggera land, the original Aboriginal grouping being the Yerongpan people. Goodna was a much better place before white settlement. Goodna is the type of place where local residents loot local businesses during a flood.

2. Gosford

ABOVE: A large hole in road at Gosford caused by heavy rain

Gosford made headlines recently when Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull vowed to never catch public transport again after arriving at the Central Coast index station.

“This place is fucked” said Malcolm Turnbull, while working hard to avoid puncturing the double leather sole of his RM Williams boots on discarded syringes.

Any town that spends thirty years unsuccessfully bidding for a new NRL franchise to be relocated there, is worthy of Bullet Train lobotomy

3. Byron Bay

As the Betoota Advocate has pointed out before, Byron Bay’s actual residents receive quite a bad wrap from outsiders, mainly due to the transient community that exists alongside them.

Underachieving expatriated city youths make up 60% percent of the population, and very few of them have relocated there for work. The faux-hippy lifestyle has created a damaging sense of entitlement in the community, and we are sure that at the core of this lazy coastal town, sits a community that would love to see a good portion of the ‘cute little beach shacks’ flattened to make way for a very fast train.

The noise generated by high speed rail would also be welcomed, as much needed respite over the bongo drums and horrible ukulele renditions of Xavier Rudd.

4. Lithgow

The main street of Lithgow. A town Laurie Oakes no longer associates himself with

As things stand, Lithgow essentially is just one big glorified train station anyway. That is, unless you are a prison officer or prison inmate. Otherwise there is no real reason to be in Lithgow.

The town has not really been able to top its brief flutter in the spotlight after former-resident and national sprinter Marjorie Jackson-Nelson AC, CVO, MBE won two Olympic and seven Commonwealth Games Gold Medals, six individual world records between 1950-1954

“The Lithgow Flash” as she was colloquially known, is just one of many products of the town who is good at running. However, unlike most residents, she was never seen sprinting with a LED flatscreen over he shoulder.

5. Ballarat

ABOVE: the most violent streets in Ballarat, according to their 2016 crime stats.

The name Ballarat is derived from a local Wathaurong Aboriginal word for the area, balla arat, thought to mean “resting place”.

After countless industrial rebellions, Aboriginal massacres, institutionalised pedophile rings (see: Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse) and now a gripping Crystal Meth plague. We pose the question, it time for this town to be bulldozed from the Earth completely?

Should it in fact become the resting place it’s first owners intended it to be?

Of course the current 90,000 residents would have to migrate to capital cities for this to happen, but most of the town’s youth were planning on doing that anyway.

6. Cronulla

The fact that the Cronulla Shire is home to Australia’s last segregated public toilet is probably enough to warrant the fact that this town no longer deserves to exist. That, and the fact that their residents aren’t really ashamed of the 2006 race riots they hosted, which exposed our country to national ridicule.

Also, anyone who was unlucky enough to experience even a few minutes of the short-lived Channel 10 reality program “The Shire” would agree that the people down there aren’t exactly curing cancer.

7. The Gold Coast

Often described as “The dud pinger of Australia” – The Gold Coast really does live up to all the horrible things that get said about it.

It’s a shortlived high for people who want to go on a bit of trip and feel like they aren’t at home.

The reason they won’t feel like they are at home is because The Gold Coast is a hypocritical shithole, that, despite the countless meth labs and strip clubs, has decided to not allow any the construction of any Mosques. In an attempt to preserve their moral fibre of their community.

Schoolies Week is the first and last time that most Australians visit the Gold Coast.

So there you have it! Please contact us at [email protected] if you would like to nominate your own town to be torn apart by the new high speed rail.

This story, among many others appears in our inaugral Betoota Advocate Round Up, If you would like to purchase a copy ahead of Christmas, visit Booktopia now!