Train drivers’ year-long wait for training spot

The latest obstacle to additional train drivers entering service to address the state’s “rail fail” has emerged.

JOBSEEKERS recruited to drive trains at Queensland Rail are waiting almost a year to enter driver school as the state’s “rail fail” hangover continues.

QR’s board was warned last July that 36 people who had received provisional job offers would not be able to enter driver training until mid-2019 because training schools were full.

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Board meeting minutes, released to the State Opposition under Right to Information, also flagged how a union challenge to external recruitment could slow the intake of new recruits.

“While applicants continue to progress through the recruitment process, they cannot be appointed until a decision has been delivered,” QR chief executive Nick Easy told the board in April 2018.

The powerful Rail Tram and Bus Union had mounted a challenge at the time in the Fair Work Commission to QR’s attempts to fill dozens of driver vacancies with external recruits.

External recruitment was a recommendation of the scathing Strachan inquiry into QR, which found external recruitment restrictions was one of four factors in the October 2016 “rail fail”.

The RTBU appeal argued an earlier Fair Work decision approving external recruitment involved “manifest errors which give rise to an injustice for the members of the RTBU”.

Former transport minister Jackie Trad at the time hosed down concerns of union delays to recruitment.

The RTBU, which refused to comment yesterday, lost the appeal last year.

But a Question on Notice this week from the State Opposition showed just 35 external recruits have been hired since its September 2017 job campaign targeting 200 extra drivers.

That is despite the campaign attracting 10,000 applications.

Another 20 ex-QR staff have been hired. But just nine external recruits are out driving trains.

When including internal recruits, 132 drivers have been trained since the rail fail.

That is a net gain of just 70 qualified drivers when factoring in natural attrition.

Transport Minister Mark Bailey blamed slow progress on the LNP making “no attempt” to recruit externally when in power.

But LNP transport spokesman Steve Minnikin predicted the “rail fail” would “roll on for a decade” at the rate drivers were being hired under Labor.

“To only have nine external drivers actually driving in two years reeks of both union interference and Government incompetency,” he said.

“It’s crazy to think that successful applicants have to wait over a year before they even start training, let alone start driving trains.”

Meanwhile, QR has appointed existing board member David Marchant as chairman.