It’s been long recognised Australia’s infrastructure needs updating and to that end a body called Infrastructure Australia has been established.

Now is the time for communities like Shoalhaven to make a bid for a slice of the very large multi-billion dollar pie.

But is it all pie in the sky?

Well, yes and no. An airport at Albion Park did not have sufficient demand to make it work, especially when airlines were slashing flight schedules because of soaring fuel costs. Perhaps it was just a little too close to Sydney.

Rail, however, is a different matter. At the very least as a community we need to make a lot of noise about electrification and improvement to the existing line. But we also need to look to the future and extending the line over the river should be part of that long-term plan.

Public transport is vital to our future, otherwise heavy petrol prices could condemn the outlying villages to lingering deaths, simply because no one can afford to get to and from them. Rail should be integral to any future public transport system.

Planning and lobbying for it must begin now, hence all the talk...and the small-minded scoffing that has predictably followed it.