Page 2917 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 14 August 2019
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We all know that the government has talked a big game, with promises of more frequent services, shorter journey times and a better connected Canberra. Yet it seems that reliable weekend services were not intended as part of this commitment. It must be said that whilst the weekend timetable has expanded, Canberra’s confidence in the new network certainly has not.
This is a government that makes no apologies for its failures. Indeed we have seen this in the answers given by the minister for transport when he has been questioned about the steps he has taken to improve the reliability of the weekend network. His statement that weekend patronage is up by 30 per cent is an insult to the many Canberrans who have waited for buses that were never going to arrive.
We have sat and listened to the minister for transport make concession after concession over weekend service failures, that this was an issue inherited, not created, by the minister. What we are yet to hear is how the minister for transport is going to resolve this issue. He says he is hiring more drivers, ignoring the basic facts that training new drivers will take a number of months and that, even once trained and available, the voluntary nature of weekend shifts means that more drivers alone will not resolve this problem.
The Transport Workers Union say that they warned the government of the disparity between the number of weekend drivers and new routes well in advance of network 19’s commencement. They warned the government that the combination of voluntary weekend shifts and lack of incentives for working those shifts meant that driver shortages would be likely.
Now, we see only too clearly what happens when you ignore the advice of those who are closest to the issue. Significant decreases in service delivery rates, extensive wait times, frustrated drivers, and disappointed passengers stranded at bus stops are the by-product of a government hopeful that their lack of planning would go unnoticed.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that the minister for transport refuses to give Canberrans more than 90 minutes notice when their bus is going to be cancelled; 90 minutes notice! Of course, many of the Canberrans who are most significantly affected by these service cancellations are those who are dependent on the network and have no other option: those who do not have a car and cannot afford a taxi, and have no choice but to wait for an hour, two hours or maybe even three hours in great hope that a bus will eventually show up. How is it that the minister for transport could consider 90 minutes to be an adequate time frame to inform passengers of cancelled services?
I ask the minister to consider how fortunate he is that he personally does not have to rely on these services. This is a minister who knows little of the struggle that Canberrans face when catching a bus on a weekend. This is a minister who speaks of the future when the struggle is right now. If only weekend passengers could just wait a little longer to receive the weekend services that they deserve and that they pay for. Whilst the current solutions, to check NXTBUS or to call a phone number, may be helpful for some, they stand far from the one-size-fits-all solution that they are made out to be.
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