NSW Transport accused of going woke with pronoun request

Staff in the giant NSW Transport department bureaucracy have been told to provide their pronouns on official emails in a move criticised as ‘woke garbage’ by NSW MP Mark Latham.

NSW Transport staff have been told to declare their “pronouns” next to their name on their official email tags in a move criticised as “woke identity politics”.

The public servants were sent the advice requesting they fill out their name and “signature block” including their position and title and to include next to their name the words “He/Him/She/Her”.

The instructions told the staff not to make any changes to the format as the signature was a part of the style guide for Transport and the NSW Government.

But One Nation NSW MP Mark Latham, who was leaked a copy of the instructions, said it was ludicrous request in the face of the mounting troubles of NSW Transport, including rail staff strikes, ferry problems and threatened train strikes.

“I think this document is an insult to commuters and completely unnecessary,” he said.

“We’ve got massive problems with a light rail that doesn’t run, trains that don’t fit in tunnels, train strikes, ferries that don’t fit under bridges.

Minister Mark Latham pictured at the 2019-2020 Budget Estimates Hearing held at NSW Parliament in Sydney. Picture: Richard Dobson

“And it turns out their main interest is pronouns.

“Maybe if they did their day job instead of being obsessed with all this political correctness and gender talk, we might have a better transport system in NSW.

“This department is constantly distracted by woke garbage. From the Giant Emu $7 million sculpture, to gender pronouns.

“There’s a massive cultural problem in Transport for NSW where they don’t do their day job.”

The whistleblower who passed on the request to Mr Latham said they felt the direction was “an attack on free speech and waste of taxpayer’s money”.

Last year NSW Treasury’s Economic Strategy Deputy Secretary Joann Wilkie sent an official note to staff encouraging adding pronouns to emails to “create safe spaces” - but this was blocked by then Treasurer Dominic Perrottet.

NSW Transport Minister David Elliot. Photo: NCA Newswire/ Gaye Gerard

NSW Transport Minister David Elliot said: “This sort of silly distraction does nothing to improve the journey of commuters.

“In my view people can use whatever pronoun they like, as long as it’s respectful.”

Australian language expert Kel Richards said he thought the four options of pronouns given was “puzzling” and “odd” as they were simply the normal male/female pronouns.

“The oddity is that they are basically the same pronouns – each offered twice (as different parts of speech - ‘he’ is normally the subject of a verb and ‘him’ the object of a verb.

“Similarly she is normally the subject and “her” the object of the verb .

“So there are not four choice (in reality) but only two – and they are the normal binary two of male and female.

“So why raise the issue of pronouns at all?”

Originally published as NSW Transport accused of going woke with pronoun request