Charles Gutjahr

Melbourne, Australia

September 2014

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Charles Gutjahr

Tiba's Restaurant
With this amount of food, choosing the vegetarian platter was clearly not as healthy as I envisaged.
With this amount of food, choosing the vegetarian platter was clearly not as healthy as I envisaged.
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Charles Gutjahr

I invented a new way to procrastinate: washing my keyboard.
I invented a new way to procrastinate: washing my keyboard.
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Charles Gutjahr

THE B.EAST
Didn't know zombies had such bad taste in tattoos.
Didn't know zombies had such bad taste in tattoos.
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Charles Gutjahr

Chemmart advocates GO/DRUGS!
Chemmart advocates GO/DRUGS!
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Charles Gutjahr

The Alehouse Project
Strawberry, pine needles, cream, sour, sour, sours lambic.
Strawberry, pine needles, cream, sour, sour, sours lambic.
Photo of Charles Gutjahr

Charles Gutjahr

The Alehouse Project
Beer #7: 12% ABV
Beer #7: 12% ABV
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Charles Gutjahr

Bass Straight Scallop over Charcoal with Chestnut & Wallaby; White Chocolate & Raspberry Pilsner.
Bass Straight Scallop over Charcoal with Chestnut & Wallaby; White Chocolate & Raspberry Pilsner.
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Charles Gutjahr

The Alehouse Project
Amy with the legendary White Chocolate & Raspberry Pilsner…
Amy with the legendary White Chocolate & Raspberry Pilsner…
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Charles Gutjahr

The Alehouse Project
Charcuterie
Charcuterie
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Charles Gutjahr

The Alehouse Project
Scallop, Wallaby, White Chocolate and Raspberry Beer — tonight's pairing.
Scallop, Wallaby, White Chocolate and Raspberry Beer — tonight's pairing.
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Charles Gutjahr

Ever prettier.
Ever prettier.
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Charles Gutjahr

This steak looks too pretty to eat.
This steak looks too pretty to eat.
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Charles Gutjahr

Blog post

Cancelling bad projects is good policy

11 Sep 2014 — a 3 minute read on politics

I am very glad to see the Victorian Labor leader Daniel Andrews say today that he will stop the East West Link project, and would not honour contracts signed before the election (albeit with qualifications — Labor's rejection of the project is nowhere near as absolute as the more cogent Green policy). But he did say the words "We are not building this project", and that's pretty strong.

We need more governments to have the guts to dump bad projects.

If they don't, we end up with more fiascos like Myki: a project that was meant to cost $494 million but ended up costing over $1.5 billion. It was known to be in trouble for a long time, and there were several opportunities where the government could have said no, let's stop Myki and try again.

Take for instance when Kamco asked for more money to build Myki in December 2007. Our government had only committed to spending $500m at that point; if they'd cut their losses then and stopped the project the most we could have lost is $500m. Even if they paid out Kamco all $500m and got nothing in return, the $1000m they would have saved could easily have paid for a completely new ticketing system to be built by another company — probably with a few hundred million dollars spare change left over. With the benefit of hindsight we know that saying 'yes' to paying Kamco more was a bad decision.

The East West Link project is at a critical point where we can benefit by saying no. There is growing evidence that the East West Link is a dud project:

If we cancel it now, that money can be spent on something better. There are several transport projects proposed for Melbourne which have better expected cost-benefits ratios, higher priority on NICS, and more support from the people who will use it.

Cancelling a bad project doesn't necessarily mean wasting money. Sure, the money already spent is wasted; but the money not spent can be put to better use that makes up for that. For a dud project like East West Link, where the price is high, the benefits are low and we're still in early days, we should expect more than just break-even.

We should expect a real windfall by cancelling.

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Charles Gutjahr

Queen Victoria Markets
Surely the end of the Queen Victoria Market as we know it — the giant block of land right next to the market is up for sale. Expect a 50+ storey apartment building with little respect for the human scale of the market… #UtopiaABC
Surely the end of the Queen Victoria Market as we know it — the giant block of land right next to the market is up for sale. Expect a 50+ storey apartment building with little respect for the human scale of the market… #UtopiaABC
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