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Fighting for Manly's JetCats
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Friday, 24 October 2008 |
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Mr MIKE BAIRD (Manly) [11.50 a.m.]: I speak on behalf of the community, who are bewildered, shocked and in complete disbelief at the decision by the Premier and the Minister for Transport that was announced in Parliament yesterday and appears in the press today that the Government will solve the mini-budget crisis by attacking and reducing public transport. I speak very strongly on behalf of hundreds of thousands of commuters who use Sydney Ferries services every year. To blame them for the unreliability of services and for the financial mismanagement of the State is an incredible act that can only be regarded as one of complete desperation, lacking any strategic foresight and, as I will explain, highly politically motivated.
The Minister for Transport spoke yesterday about the cost of running the service. I point out to him that over the 5 years preceding the last 12 months Sydney Ferries' revenues went up 14 per cent but expenses went up 46 per cent. Members should ask themselves: Who is responsible for the mismanagement of Sydney Ferries and what is the cost base? I can tell them that Sydney Ferries costs are nowhere near efficient and do not marry with those of the private sector. If the private sector wants a deckhand it will pay $38,000 a year, yet it is quite okay for Sydney Ferries to pay a deckhand $68,000 a year. If members want to understand the costs involved in Sydney Ferries they should realise the structure is completely bloated and inefficient and has no basis for comparison with the private sector. The Minister cannot say Sydney Ferries costs and JetCats costs are too high because the costs are driven by their complete mismanagement. It does not take Einstein to work out that if 27 per cent less was spent on maintenance over the past two years the reliability of JetCat ferries will decrease. That is exactly what has happened. It is a case study in mismanagement and they have no-one to blame but themselves.
It is ironic that the day before the Premier and the Minister for Transport spoke about the JetCats the Premier was depicted in the local Parramatta paper as the "ferry godfather" because he saved the Parramatta RiverCats despite what the Walker inquiry said. The Minister for Transport said he read the executive summary of the Walker report, not the whole report. It showed that JetCat ferries performed more reliably than the RiverCats, by 84.2 per cent to 83 per cent. The RiverCats cost more in maintenance—$529 an operating hour—than the JetCats, whose costs were $510 an operating hour. The RiverCats also had almost eight times the number of accidents that the JetCats had over three years from July 2004 to June 2007.
The JetCats are safer and more reliable and they cost less to maintain than the RiverCats, yet the Premier was very happy to save the RiverCats. What conclusion can be drawn from that? If the Government wanted a bipartisan approach to the mini-budget and a sensible approach to public transport it would not be investing funds to save its friends in marginal seats such as Parramatta and saving services there while happily taking away services from the people of Manly.
The Premier and the Minister for Transport cannot blame a single community for their own mismanagement. They have to provide a service to Manly. We have had a high-speed service to Manly for 30 years. The Government has not invested in The Spit solution or in providing more buses. In fact we continue to fight for the bus services we have. Express services are being reduced, as are services generally. That is incredible. I also note that we have a good opportunity in the mini-budget to fix the complete lack of financial discipline in this State. If the Government started to make really objective decisions it might be in a position to receive bipartisan support for the sorts of things that should be done to fix this State. However, if the Government turns the mini-budget into a complete political circus, which is what looks like happening, it will let down not only the people of Manly, as it has with the JetCat decision, but the entire State.
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