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Gotta Love Sydney Ferries
Date: 09 October 2009
An expanded public ferry service will ease congestion in Sydney's West, while cut backs and sell offs will make it worse.
The Save our Sydney Ferries community group today took its campaign in support of publicly owned ferries to the West, where it won the support of local Parramatta MP Tanya Gadiel.
The Western Sydney Gotta Love Sydney Ferries campaign was launched by legendary heritage and trade union activist Jack Mundey.
"We know that Western Sydney is bursting at the seams and cutting back or selling off vital ferry services will only add more cars to the roads," Mr Mundey said.
"Now more than ever, we need a government that invests in better services. We need more public transport, not more sell offs."
The State Government is currently considering bids from two multinational firms to privatise Sydney Ferries.
One of the bidders, Veolia, recently saw its subsidiary Connex dumped by the Victorian Government for failing to provide quality rail services.
During the first three months of 2009, Connex cancelled 4,538 trains. The company was also fined $11.2 million by the Victorian Government for poor performance.
Maritime Union Assistant Secretary Paul Garrett said the logic of privatisation was hard to see.
"The test of any privatisation is whether it improves services to the public. Given the admirable record of Sydney Ferries in recent years, it's hard to see how that's possible," Mr Garrett said.
"In the last two years, safety has improved, reliability is up and complaints are down. So we'll be impressing all of that upon Tanya Gadiel and asking her to support our fine ferry service staying public."
For further information
| Contact: |
Paul Garrett
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| Union: |
MUA
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| Phone: |
0418422589
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| WWW: |
www.saveoursydneyferries.org.au
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