Then Australia will need to decarbonise its transport. In the cities (well, Sydney and Melbourne at least) it’s building out more effective public transport systems and increasing residential density to allow less car-centric lifestyles. Between major cities, aviation is still the undisputed king, and with there being no safe electrical storage technology with an energy density approaching A1 kerosene on the horizon, renewably-powered electric airliners aren’t happening any time soon. Australia still has railways, but they’re in a poor state: old, slow Victorian-era alignments, and a lack of electrification. Passenger trains run between Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, but they’re slow (you’d get better Sydney and Melbourne quicker driving at the speed limit down the Hume Highway than on the XPT train); meanwhile, working passenger trains between the east and west coasts were replaced with premium-priced boomer rail cruises some time in the era of cheap flights.

For decarbonisation, Australia will need improved passenger rail. Ideally high-speed rail, though that will take a generation or two to build (the Albanese federal government’s generation-defining HSR project is, wait for it, an intrastate line between Sydney and the regional city of Newcastle). A better approach might arguably be to quietly upgrade existing lines, straightening out the slowest curves and adding electrification in increments, while increasing service frequencies and reliability. Where HSR is built out, it should be classic-compatible to add value to the rest of the line. (A HSR line connecting Sydney to Canberra in one hour would cannibalise the aviation market between them, and would also shave a few hours off a Sydney-Melbourne route that could use the alignment before crossing to the old slow line.)

Also, not neglecting night trains: they’re easy enough to dismiss as some kind of whimsical fantasy or Instagram photo-op for hipsters, at least if the mindset is “yeah, nah, normal people just fly, mate”, but there’s a revival in them happening in Europe, and plenty of people find boarding a train in the evening and getting off in the centre of town next morning to be convenient. Having the Sydney-Brisbane train leave at 2pm and arrive at 4am doesn’t show concern for passengers. And ordering replacement trains without sleeper carriages (as TfNSW did) is a huge lost opportunity. Until you can do the trip on a Shinkansen in under 5 hours, you need sleeper carriages.