Opinion: Queensland rail report highlights ‘culture of complacency and reluctance for sharing bad news’

IT IS just a small paragraph in the 52-page report explaining in detail how the wheels came off Queensland Rail – but one that cannot be overlooked.

Stirling Hinchliffe resigned as Minister for Transport shortly after the release of the latest review into Queensland Rail. Picture: Claudia Baxter

• Transport Minister Stirling Hinchliffe resigns
• Queensland Rail culture probe reveals battle
• Commuter alert: Years of train woes ahead

IF the series of errors, oversights and managerial ineptitude that set the scene for the multi-faceted Queensland Rail timetable fail could be explained in a single paragraph, then an entry on page 39 of the Strachan Inquiry comes closest.

Discussing the transport body’s culture, Commissioner Phillip Strachan writes: “There was a culture within the Operations team of intuitive decision-making, complacency, and reluctance for sharing bad news.”

Former Minister for Transport and the Commonwealth Games Stirling Hinchliffe has had a turbulent few months.

It is just a small paragraph in the 52-page report explaining in detail how the wheels came off Queensland Rail - but one that cannot be overlooked.

The “reticence” to share bad news goes some way to explaining, as the report points out, why the QR board were left in the dark about the driver shortages, with the extent of the problem also kept from its chief executive and the Government.

Instead of escalating the problem up the line, middle management staff in QR Operations tried to fix the problem themselves using “day of operation levers”.

It was a gross error of judgement, with the Inquiry finding by then a combination of systemic issues had led to a dramatic shortfall in drivers that by then could not be patched-up by tweaking the roster.

“There was a culture of complacency, rather than taking proactive steps to understand and address the causes of prior operational issues,” the report found.

It continued that there was even a template used by QR’s chief operating officer that had been designed with a “positive skew” and a damning report on the shortages was described to the board as having “identified business improvement recommendations.”

And having the head of operations travelling abroad at the most crucial of times did not help, the report points out.

While information on the looming crisis was not passed up the ladder to QR’s chief executive officer, then CEO Helen Gluer’s leadership comes in for some criticism, with the report pointing out she did not appear to have “proactively challenged assurances” that a beefed-up timetable rolled out on October 3 could be delivered.