Union to push Labor to take back ownership of embattled bus system

The Rail, Train and Bus Union will meet with new NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen this week hoping to turn back the clock on bus privatisation.

NSW tram and bus division secretary David Babineau said privatisation has driven away people dedicated to serving the public.

Sofia Masur, (third from left) a Manly resident and commuter voted on public transport issues at the state election after frequent bus cancellations made it impossible for her to get to work on time.Credit: Kate Geraghty

“We have got no choice but to push for it to come back into government hands,” he said. “It wasn’t public transport; it was a public service. We didn’t have customers; we had passengers.

“[Reverting to a publicly owned bus system] requires political will, and I am not privy to the contracts, but I would say that grounds exist for termination due to non-performance. If that’s the case you wouldn’t have to worry about paying compensation because they have failed to deliver what they were contracted to do.”

Babineau said there were two ways to fix the problem: renegotiate the contracts and throw more money at it; or to take the buses back into public hands because throwing more money at it wasn’t going to fix a lot of the underlying issues.

He estimates some 400 drivers have left since privatisation across four regions, and at the very least they need to pull back depots in the inner west, Ryde and Willoughby into public hands.

“That’s where we have got these companies racing to the bottom, actually making things worse.”

Aerial photo above Parramatta train station as the rail system crashed on March 8, 2023. Credit: Nine News

A depot insider who asked not to be named said he had never seen such a “total mess”. He said drivers in Ryde and Willoughby down by one-third, Mona Vale was down 36 drivers and Brookvale down 94.

“Apart from operating a normal timetable they have to assist when the rail network goes down and to cover special events,” he said. “They are covering the Easter Show at the moment and the fact that the schools are on holidays is all that has saved them.

“We have had concerts for Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles and the buses were struggling to cover them because they don’t have the drivers.”

Minister for Transport Jo Haylen said she was committed to listening to the workers who operate the public transport system.

“They know how the system works, and they also know where it could be made better,” she said.

“The former Liberal government’s failed bus privatisation model led to thousands of cancelled trips, cuts to services, stop closures, and drivers leaving the industry in droves. This isn’t something that can be fixed overnight.

“Labor has announced a bus industry taskforce during the election campaign that will work to find solutions to the driver shortage and return services that were cut under the former Liberal government.”

Haylen, the member for Summer Hill, said in a speech before the election that restoring trust in the public transport system “starts, first and foremost, with government rebuilding its relationships with the very people that make the system function”.

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