Carr's public transport hypocrisy

By Jenny Long

SYDNEY -- A last-minute deal saved the face of the state Labor government during NSW's inaugural Public Transport Week, October 5-11, when the railways unions called off a planned 24-hour strike. However, the hypocrisy of Premier Bob Carr's “support” for reducing car reliance still shone through the glossy plans for the October 9 “Walk to Work Day”.

The strike was to protest against state government plan to slash the number of CityRail station masters and assistants by one-third by sacking 199 workers. CityRail management's face-saving agreement with the Australian Services Union and Public Transport Union didn't include a commitment not to cancel the sackings, but to find “efficiencies” through negotiations for an enterprise agreement.

The deal allowed state transport minister Carl Scully to blame CityRail management's “heavy-handed approach” for the threatened strike. After the Sydney Water bungle, every opportunity for self-promotion is crucial to the government, which faces an election next March.

In June, Labor's “family first” state budget slashed spending on public transport by $122 million, despite the allocation of $77 million for 800 more redundancies in the railways. This slug followed a 24% cut in public transport funding during the previous three years.

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