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Mr MIKE BAIRD (Manly) [3.59 p.m.]: This is an interesting motion and I will start with some facts. The member for Drummoyne and the member for Parramatta support the ferry services that are being provided, but they really should understand the plans that the Government is putting forward. As the member for Willoughby articulated, the State Government's Transport Plan, which the Premier released in February 2010 with much fanfare, talks about the forecast trips across the city in all the various modes of transport. I assume the brochure is correct. It is expected that ferry trips will drop from 40,000 trips a day to 38,000 trips a day over the next 10 years. The forecast for patronage the Government will use to run the service is fewer commuters over the coming 10-year period. That is incredible. If we go further into the detail, there are some other really interesting points. Patronage on other forms of transport, including the monorail and aeroplane, will increase by 38 per cent. It is anticipated that ferry patronage will drop and part of the solution going forward will be monorails and airplanes. That is what the transport plan talks about.
Other myths were put forward in debate today about Sydney Ferries staying in public hands. Public transport should stay in public hands. We support that 100 per cent. We certainly support ferries staying in public hands. We argue that the performance of Sydney Ferries must improve. The Government should fight for the commuters it is supposed to represent. The Government's record in relation to ferries, particularly those that service my electorate, is nothing short of embarrassing. On 23 October 2009 the Premier announced in the mini-budget:
the JetCat provides an unreliable service duplicated by a 30-minute ferry service and numerous bus services from the Northern Beaches we must now consider the viability of the existing service. The State Government could not make the JetCat service work; it could not make it reliable nor could it respond to commuter complaints about it being unreliable. It was not uncommon for commuters to turn up at the wharf to find a chalkboard with words such as, "Sorry, the JetCat is not operating today". On these occasions no reason was given for the JetCat not operating. The Government said, "The only thing we can do is to cancel it, and good luck, because it is all too hard". I pay tribute to the local community that came together to try to fix the ferry service. A committee chaired by Llew Jenkins fought for a ferry service for the Manly community. We were told again and again that there was no option, that the Government was looking at it, but that no private service would be forthcoming—no service whatsoever. We argued strongly that if the Government was not going to provide a service, it should at least be put out to tender.
I give credit to the former Minister for Transport, who eventually succumbed to community pressure. The community was demanding a service—13,700 people a week would use it. After the Bass and Flinders fast ferry service was introduced, only four services were cancelled in a year, which is about 0.05 per cent of total services compared with the cancellation of 6 per cent of Sydney Ferries services, which is a massive difference. More importantly, patronage on the Bas and Flinders service started at about 1,800 passengers a day and increased to 2,700 a day. The community supports it. There are hundreds of emails supporting it. I have one here from Katrina, which reads:
The fast-ferry operators Bass & Flinders (B&F) started 10/2/09 much to the relief of the 13,750 commuters who had been let down by the state government following the arbitrary decision to close the jet cat service because it was apparently unprofitable. Amazingly Bass & Flinders have managed to run a profitable service that generates revenue to the State whilst also providing a very reliable and efficient service with no cancellations as used to happen frequently when it was state run. The service runs on time in clean boats run by friendly staff. The email describes many processes that the service had to contend with when it started, but, despite those, the service to commuters did not suffer. The email continues:
How do we reward this 10 out of 10 service? That is what the Manly community is saying and what we are arguing for going forward. It must be possible to provide the community we represent with the best possible service. If the members for Drummoyne and Parramatta were honest, they would acknowledge that we are arguing very strongly that public transport should be kept in public hands, but the service should be improved. Patronage and customer service should be put back in the heart of ferry services in this State.
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