It's hard to say, but certainly one of the most critical factors in the transition would be a government with the political will, and mandate, for such moves.

While the public service's political masters love a public hard-hat appearance, long-term infrastructure planning, at both state and federal level, has long suffered from short-term thinking.

It may be somewhat surprising, then, that prominent mandarin Mike Mrdak went public last week in a speech saying that sending reform proposals to the Prime Minister's Office were a sure way to kill off a good idea.

Certainly, sending such a message publicly, pre-retirement, was unusual - but the comments did not express anything that hasn't long been whispered, or laughed about, in the coffee shops of Barton.

Mr Mrdak, a veteran of Senate Estimates and the infrastructure portfolio - as well as some time in the coveted Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet - is well-versed in the problems, and the potential solutions, in this area.

One hopes there are more Mrdak's among the current crop of senior APS leaders - their ministers may not want to hear their no doubt frank and fearless advice - but they must be prepared to continue offering it up.

What his intervention in the debate should signal - to federal and state and territory leaders - is that short-term electoral goals must be replaced with long-term thinking with some urgency if the growing malaise the Australian National University annual voter sentiment survey shows is to be addressed.

So it is that New South Wales' Premier Gladys Berejiklian's recent conversion to the high-speed rail camp of which ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has long been a banner-waver, should be welcomed.

While Canberra could be a key beneficiary - if not a large bearer of the cost of such a project - Melbourne and Sydney would also benefit from a new transport option that could actually compete with air travel between the three capitals.

But, Mr Barr told this newspaper, perhaps before the multi-billion project could be seriously thought through, a little maintenance and a decent capital injection could be in order.

Ahead of a Japanese-style bullet train, which could be decades away if such a proposal actually got up, reducing the four hour-odd train journey even to compete with the bus from the capital to Sydney could help ease pressure and provide residents with a more realistic option.

Realigning parts of the track through the rural areas should not be beyond the two governments working together.

Although things may get a little trickier past Bankstown, given the troubles the NSW government already has with trees and its own light rail project, it is not above a government willing to make it work, if not the political capital or mandate for such.

If the various moving parts can't move together on reducing the travel time between the nation's capital and Sydney, at the very least, they could adjust the seating in the ageing carriages to allow a little more leg room.