Joe Hildebrand: Trams crisis could turn fatal for Perrottet government

Cracked trams out of service in Sydney’s inner west could become a big problem for a government thus far blessed with weak opposition, writes Joe Hildebrand.

Around two decades ago, as NSW was in the grip of one of its cyclical health and transport crises, a veteran political adviser confided in me that people dying unnecessarily in hospitals was not the government’s greatest worry.

Yes, it was awful and yes, it needed to be fixed, but in cold hard political terms it was something extremely bad that happened to ­extremely few people and only happened to them once.

A transport crisis, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite problem.

It is something moderately annoying that happens to hundreds of thousands of people every day.

It might not be a physical matter of life and death but when it comes to political graveyards, this is the one where state governments get buried.

Now consider this: The transport crisis that had this spin doctor so worried was a rough patch of industrial action and trains running a few minutes late.

Twelve trams that service the city's Inner West have been found to have serious cracks and have been decommissioned for up to 18 months. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

The one embroiling the current government involves the shutdown of an entire rail line for a year and a half.

This is why Premier Dominic Perrottet isn’t even trying to spin his way out of this one, describing the situation as “unacceptable” and “terrible”.

On election night he might also be adding the adjective “fatal”.

Because in almost every way the timing and nature of inner west light rail shutdown – in which every single tram has had to be off the track due to cracking – is perfectly primed to be the bomb that blows up the ­government.

Yes, the Coalition has been caught out by marginal corruption and shameless pork-barrelling but it has also otherwise been mostly competent, especially in the all-important Covid response, and that is all most punters really care about.

Not high moral or probity issues but, to recall a certain infamous ­political axiom, whether the trains run on time.

Some of the cracks on the fleet of Transdev trams.

More cracks.

As my old mate observed 20 years ago, trains not running on time is a very big problem for any government.

Now imagine the size of that problem if they don’t run at all.

And that is just the political suicide starter kit. Everything else about the shutdown is perfectly aligned to cause maximum damage to the government.

For one thing, the government has been told that getting the trams back on the tracks could take up to 18 months. The next state election is in 17 months. Ouch.

To make matters worse for the Coalition, the intelligent and pragmatic new Labor leader Chris Minns has been shrewd in picking his battles.

Unlike other oppositions in other states, he has not attacked the government on Covid and therefore built a reservoir of respect and trust from punters on both sides of politics.

He has also deliberately distanced himself and NSW Labor from anything resembling the woke or identity-obsessed issues that have beset other supposedly progressive parties.

Instead he has focused both carefully and relentlessly on mainstream, suburban, everyman issues – especially, you guessed it, transport.

It’s believed the government are worried about Opposition Leader Chris Minns. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Adam Yip

Not only was he the party’s previous transport spokesman, but as leader his first signature issue has been a crusade against excessive tolls and revenue-raising speed cameras – both bread and butter issues for all working men and women and ­especially Labor’s blue-collar and tradie base.

But his strongest policy position since taking over Labor has been that Australian trains and trams should be built in Australia, not by overseas companies promising a cheaper price and then delivering substandard ­rolling stock.

And, sure enough, it just so happens the 12 trams taken off the rails last week were built by a company in Spain now beset by similar complaints from around the world.

Note to self – when spending billions of dollars on high-cost, high-pressure, time-sensitive, ultra-technical infrastructure maybe don’t give it to the country that invented the siesta.

The manufacturer CAF has even had the temerity to tell Transport for NSW the cracks might have been caused by external factors, with reports suggesting this could include poorly maintained tracks or the trams going too fast.

It is fair to say that of all the ­criticisms levelled at Sydney’s ­beleaguered light rail projects, “going too fast” has never been one of them.

The government will be thanking its lucky stars that it is only the inner west light rail line that has been affected and that traverses just three seats — none of them marginal, nor held by the Libs.

But even here fate has conspired against them.

The end of the line is smack bang in the middle of the Summer Hill electorate held by Labor’s Jo Haylen, who just happens to have replaced Minns as the party’s transport spokesman.

If ever the cosmos was sending a signal to the Coalition that it is in for some seriously bad juju, then this one couldn’t be clearer.

Labor’s transport spokesman Jo Haylen Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

Because transport isn’t just about trains and trams. It’s about freedom and time. The freedom to get to the places you need to go and the time you get to spend with the people you want to be with.

NSW Labor is now back on the straight and narrow as a sure and sensible mainstream political force that has jettisoned the juvenile leftist idiocy from the party’s sillier fringes that once threatened to infect it.

I am told that government figures are privately deeply worried about Minns in a way they never were about his predecessors — and well they should be.

If the Coalition doesn’t get the line up and running again well ahead of the election you can guarantee those 12 trams won’t be the only things off the rails.