Rees’ rail disaster is a class betrayal

Anyone with the slightest understanding of politics would have known that replacing a much-touted metro-link to Sydney’s grossly under-serviced north-west with a cheaper but utterly unnecessary rail link to two inner-west suburbs would be a complete PR disaster.

Nathan Rees, however, is clueless. Don’t forget the bizarre ‘love and traffic’ and ‘black panther’ episodes. The evidence is growing, folks.

To tell you the truth, yesterday’s announcement of a $4 billion link to Rozelle and Pyrmont is so politically incompetent and so outrageous from a public administration perspective that it is almost beyond comprehension.

Sydney is a town of two newspapers. The Sydney Morning Herald caters largely to the middle classes close to the CBD and in the eastern and northern suburbs; it is sparsely read beyond those areas and it often looks like it thinks Sydney ends at Parramatta. Unsurprisingly, then, its transport writer sees some merit in the latest NSW Government rail plan:

Unlike the North West Metro, which had to be heavily sandbagged against legitimate concerns that it travelled too far into low-density suburbs – its cost benefits teetering on a precipice – this metro has some redeemable features, even though it was cobbled together almost overnight.

The Daily Telegraph, which caters more for the west of Sydney, has gone after Rees with all guns blazing, and they didn’t miss:

WHILE long-suffering commuters in Sydney’s western suburbs still wait for decent public transport, Premier Nathan Rees yesterday unveiled a $4 billion train to nowhere.

In a move more reminiscent of an inner-west latte drinker than a garbo from Toongabbie, Mr Rees has announced yet another new metro system that will run only from Central to Rozelle.

And Mr Rees and his infrastructure chief David Richmond have asked the Federal Government to pay the entire cost of the CBD mini-metro, designed largely to service finance professionals at the plush new Barangaroo development.

The Daily Telegraph knows how its audience of much put upon commuters from Sydney’s sprawling suburbs will react to the latest ALP betrayal.

Although the ALP draws its political support overwhelmingly from Sydney’s west, its members seem to forget the people they purport to represent as soon as they cross the ANZAC bridge.

Twelve years of ALP Government have been an absolute disaster for Sydney’s public transport and Nathan Rees seems destined to perpetuate this policy-making circus.

Unfortunately, even if the ALP came up with a decent public transport policy nobody would believe them because we have had so many announcements and reversals that the Government’s promises are basically worthless.