[ABC] 4 Corners 'Off the Rails' Rail Infrastructure Planning Failure in NSW 5/10/2009

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• published: 20 May 2012
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Reporter: Wendy Carlisle This program explores where the former Labor Governments failed in the area of Transport planning, especially Rail Transport in New South Wales. As a result we have today's CityRail as we wait for reform not expected to be finished until next year, and the North West Rail Link construction is still years away. Source: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2009/s2702210.htm Reporter Wendy Carlisle reveals the alarming disconnect between the politicians who claim they are running New South Wales and the people in the suburbs of Australia's biggest city. She talks to business owners who are unable to employ people unless they have their own car because of a lack of public transport, and travels with workers who spend at least four hours a day commuting to and from work. Meanwhile the government is spending billions of dollars on an inner city metro that some experts claim isn't really needed. In modern politics the New South Wales Government has won a dubious distinction. It is now considered by many voters to be a political joke. Last year the new state Premier, Nathan Rees, announced the government would build an inner city metro. Standing before the media to make what should have been a significant announcement he found himself humiliated. The Premier had come to the media conference without knowing how much the project would cost. In some states this might have been a fatal political error. Not in NSW. Voters in the state no longer believe the government when it announces major transport projects and the reason is very simple. In the past decade they have been promised two major new rail extensions, a brand new metro going to the city's north, a ferry service that runs on time and much more besides. Virtually none of this has eventuated. When the metro costing was finally released it raised some eyebrows. A six kilometre stretch of underground rail would set taxpayers back billions. This stretch of rail would service only the inner west of the city - an area already served by buses, light rail and ferries. This week on Four Corners, reporter Wendy Carlisle, asks how, with the rest of the city mired in gridlock and lacking public transport and rail services, an inner city area currently held by the Labor Party could be so favoured? What she finds will shock you. First it's now clear there are no absolutely reliable figures to show that an inner city metro would be fully utilised. The second issue is cost. Already estimates of the project's cost have blown out from $4 billion to $5.3 billion. But costings and passenger figures are only part of the story. When talking with Labor insiders, Wendy discovers that this latest project is simply the end game in a bitter battle waged over the past ten years between Labors MPs and the union dominated party machine. In that decade two Premiers, who wanted to sell public assets to provide decent public transport, have been sacrificed so that union leaders could protect their members' jobs and their own political power. Meanwhile, major tracts of Sydney's west go without adequate public transport. The NSW government is on track for electoral oblivion. Four Corners talks to politicians, top bureaucrats and NSW voters to ask why NSW is "Off the Rails", Monday 5th October at 8.30 pm on ABC 1. It is repeated on 6th October at 11.35 pm.