source : the age
Credit: Megan Herbert
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I’m not a critic of public transport but I was amused by the report ″Metro gets millions to keep it in profit″ (18/6) of Metro Trains being propped up by the government in response to lower passenger volumes. Obviously, operators of essential services need continuity and COVID was a massive disruption to their revenues. The work-from-home practice has also been a disruptor, but that’s here to stay. Charts published in the report show that volumes have increased since COVID but not to pre-pandemic volumes. Contracts offered by government to Metro offer a ″revenue floor″ to ensure profitability – that’s a safety net. I am a frequent rail user and I think the service they offer is pretty good, but it’s obvious that this essential service cannot really be expected to operate as a genuine free-market concern. Metro will pocket the profits from the good times and put out the begging hand in the bad times. It just doesn’t seem to be any different to a public utility, so why pretend? Does Victoria get a better result from outsourcing these services?
Andrew Barnes, Ringwood
Preventing fare evasion would be a start
I read with astonishment in the article about Metro Trains that two words didn’t get a mention: Fare evasion. As a regular user of public transport in Melbourne, I continue to notice low compliance with paying for travel. Since when was the CBD free zone extended to all modes of transport on the entire network? On buses I would be surprised that 20 per cent of passengers tap on. On trams (outside the free zone), even less. At some railway stations in the CBD, I struggle to understand why there is that one permanently open barrier gate that allows passengers to blatantly walk through without tapping off — unchallenged by nearby standing PTV employees.
This is a problem specific to Melbourne (and possibly the entire state). I notice almost 100 per cent compliance with tapping on and off in all other capital cities. So might I suggest that before the state government hands over taxpayers’ money to operators, like Metro Trains, for lower passenger revenue that they first acknowledge and address the apparent revenue leakage.
Peter Myers, St Kilda
Have there been any benefits of privatisation?
Yet another win for privatisation of public assets. Can anyone identify any previously public enterprise that has benefited the public by being privatised? Just one would be nice.
Ross Hudson, Mount Martha
Government must be accountable
The ongoing contractual payments to Metro Trains to cover lost revenue due to higher work-from-home rates show how misleading it is to argue governments can shift “revenue risk” to the private sector by privatising public services. It is ultimately governments who remain accountable for the standard of public goods and services, whether the ultimate provider is a public or a private entity. That’s why when one looks around the world it’s more common for operators to receive a fixed price that reflects the benchmark cost of service provision, with incentives and penalties coming on top of this. Where a fee is charged to users, the revenue is retained by government to offset the cost of providing the service, rather than affecting the payment to the operator.
To “pay a private company its own profit” is exactly what we all do when we procure goods and services from private businesses. The businesses expect a margin and it doesn’t come from anywhere else but the customer. The alternative is to do it all yourself, as of course governments did in the past and some still do today.
Tony Morton, President, Public Transport Users Association, Melbourne
THE FORUM
Joy of buskers
I have to disagree with your correspondent (Letters, 18/6) who said he had rarely come across a busker with any great talent.
There are some great buskers in the city, especially outside the old GPO building on Bourke Street next to Myer. It’s like a mini-outdoor concert there some days, with people sitting on the steps watching and clapping.
I think the reason less people give buskers money is that we don’t have cash on us all the time. Ioften wish I had cash to give them. Sometimes I take cash out of an ATM just to give the buskers.
It’s great to hear music floating through the air in contrast to the trams dinging their bells, sirens from police cars and fire engines and all the other city noises.
Carol Evans, St Kilda
They are not beggars
I take issue with your correspondent stating that buskers are merely beggars. More than 40 years ago my jug band (three of us) busked in the Bourke Street mall on a Friday night and we earned quite the wage. More than $10 an hour each. It was quite the sum for 1983. We were most certainly not beggars and we poured our heart and soul into our performance.
We prided ourselves on our professionalism and did not expect to get paid if we didn’t earn it. We succeeded in getting regular pub gigs and corporate events from our efforts. Many a performer started successful careers from busking and should not be denigrated for their courage.
Frank Flynn, Cape Paterson
A dream of hope
This week I was strolling with a friend in Clarendon Street, South Melbourne. At one point, about two shop fronts ahead of us was an apparently homeless woman. She was pushing a heavily laden shopping trolley full of her possessions. She wore many layers of clothes. It was a cold day.
She wasn’t asking for anything, just quietly making her way along the path, struggling a bit with her trolley. From two shop fronts back, the stench coming off her was unbelievable. People looked startled then horrified as they passed her. To my shame, I couldn’t even pass her – I turned and went back the other way rather than get closer to the smell of her and confront the fact that I couldn’t help her. Not nearly enough anyway.
I wish there was something significant we could have done. I had a mad idea later about a help line that we could all have access to, like Lifeline. A number you could call and there would be a van in the vicinity with two or three well-trained social workers or psych nurses to help. The van would come, and the workers would have clean clothes to offer the woman, some food perhaps, and they would ask if she would like to have a shower and a sleep and a good meal in a safe place not too far away, and maybe they could look into getting her some accommodation. At least for a little while. To let her have a rest. She might need a psych assessment and a bit of time in a psych ward and medication. She might say no thanks, but she might appreciate some help.
I know our sad world is a mess, that big and awful things are happening in too many places and it’s all beyond us, but is it ridiculously idealistic of me to think that woman’s situation in a Melbourne city is utterly unnecessary? A bit of everyday misery in my very rich and peaceful city. I’m more than happy to pay more tax if that will help.
Karen Morris, Newport
Rest in peace from tech
Having recently turned 80, and regularly tearing out what is left of my hair when negotiating my computer and phone, dealing with begging emails, email petitions, scams, hacks, passwords, user names, templates, registration numbers, upgrades, downloads, lost data, full storage, unwanted ads, processes I have never encountered before and now AI, I have concluded that one of the few benefits of dying is that I will not have to wrestle with computers any more.
Michael Meszaros, Alphington
NDIS changes stressful
My highly skilled paediatric physiotherapist daughter has treated children with brain injuries and disabilities for 15 years. The proposed imminent changes to NDIS fees would mean that her fees are cut by $10 an hour and her travel fees to home visits halved. She would also earn less than music or art therapists. Physios will be the lowest paid allied health professionals on the NDIS. (It is also worth noting that their NDIS fees have not increased in the past 6 years.) Meanwhile, professional development fees and clinic rooms are becoming more costly. This decision is inequitable, hugely stressful and unsustainable.
Paediatric physios may be forced to look for other work, disabled children will have fewer services and families are hugely affected. NDIS needs to reconsider this immediately.
Jenny Thompson, Alphington
Let’s go back to the French
So it looks like we may never get the AUKUS submarines from the US, so why don’t we go back to the French? We might even get a discount from the many hundred millions we had to pay them for ditching that contract. But would they trust us?
Stuart Gluth, Northcote
Torpedo this deal
The US president has clearly shown the importance of Australia to his country. We now have the perfect excuse to back out of the ear-bleeding sum his country is ripping out of our so insignificant country, $368 billion. An amount that on past performance will substantially increase over the next three decades. And which will go to propping up and expanding the US nuclear submarine industry to which we’ve already paid the eye-watering sum of $800million, the return of which hasn’t been mentioned if the US backs out of the deal.
For submarines that will in all likelihood be sunk in the first few minutes of any conflict with, for example, China. That same sum could be used for many of the good causes currently sinking for lack of governmental support.
My Boomer generation is already robbing our descendants of its natural environment, continuing with this deal will also rob them of the education, health, welfare, and seemingly endless essential infrastructure they rightfully deserve.
Lex Borthwick, Burwood
The pitfalls of privatisation
Since neo-liberalism took hold in the 1980s the love affair, by governments of all persuasions, with privatisation and contracting out continues to have a negative impact on taxpayers. In a state where the government is facing enormous debt it has seen fit to offset any loss in profits for a private transport company (“Metro gets millions to keep it in profit″, 18/6). Ultimately it is the taxpayer who bears these costs.
Many reviews of privatisation demonstrate that invariably consumers do not receive the benefits promised. The Productivity Commission noted the necessity for careful planning and strong regulatory frameworks when embarking on privatisation of public infrastructure. This revelation of our public transport contract is a glaring example of failure on several levels.
We have seen the fiasco of privatisation of human services in aged care and childcare. It is time that governments pause and consider what policies will actually deliver the best outcomes for its citizens.
Anne Lyon, Camberwell
A plan for peace
Columnist Thomas Friedman (Comment, 18/6) challenges US President Donald Trump, among other things, to recognise ″Palestinians as a people who have a right to national self-determination″ and to not tolerate ″the rapid settlement expansion and one-state reality Israel is now creating″.
Both are essential ingredients for any resolution of the tragic conflict. Convinced that only the ″two-state solution″ offers a way forward, he wants Israel and the Palestinians to agree on borders between their territories. Prospects of this happening in the short term are almost non-existent, but if an agreed diplomatic partner could bring both parties to the table out of public view, discussions about borders should begin with those proposed by the UN in 1947, not those achieved by Israel in the war of 1967.
This is not to endorse the flaws and injustice of the UN Partition Plan, but to accept it as a working hypothesis for negotiations. Whether there is any chance of Trump playing a constructive role in this is anyone’s guess.
Tom Knowles, Parkville
Who to lead talks?
Russian President Vladimir Putin has put himself forward to mediate peace between Israel and Iran, however it’s been rejected due to Putin’s close relationship with Iran. But Trump has an even closer relationship with Israel, which should rule him out, too.
We have seen Trump’s mediation style with Ukraine and the Gaza conflict. He backs the stronger side and tells the weaker side it must give up. He has failed completely in ending the conflicts.
Why isn’t the secretary-general of the United Nations leading the peace negotiations in all these conflicts? Oh, that’s right, the US or Russia veto any serious resolution aimed at ending the conflicts fairly.
Daniel Cole, California Gully
Look after your heart
Your correspondent is right about the need for heart screening (Letters, 16/6). While writing my life story for my grandchildren I found I was the longest living male on the paternal side of the family by more than 20 years. I am 77.
I consequently had a heart artery scan that showed a calcium score at the severe end of the table. A heart attack was imminent, and I had no pain nor was I running out of puff. Action was taken and I am fine now.
Routine heart health screening should be available for all at 70 years of age , or maybe even 60.
Kevin Drinan, Bentleigh
Credit: Matt Golding
AND ANOTHER THING
World affairs
With the Middle East on the brink of a major war did anyone really expect that any US president would say just hold everything for a minute I need to have a chat with the Australian prime minister?
Phil Alexander, Eltham
Whatever the justice of Israel’s bombing campaign, I am hoping to see the long-suffering Iranian people – especially the women – liberated from a tyrannical, repressive, theocratic regime.
Patrice McCarthy, Bendigo
Lawyer Leon Zwier (″Fears for Australians in conflict far from home″, 18/6) has attended a conference in Tel Aviv that included a session on stress management. At present, if you can manage it there you can manage it anywhere.
Sandra Torpey, Hawthorn
Wouldn’t it be good if Iran agreed to not develop nuclear weapons and to allow inspectors in to verify compliance? Oh, that’s right it did, until Donald Trump cancelled that agreement when he was president in 2018.
Graham Phelps, Ocean Grove
The whole world holds its collective breath while a man who considers himself both a pope and a king, lets us know what his next move may be.
Myra Fisher, Brighton East
Furthermore
Workers wanting the right to refuse artificial intelligence is akin to refusing the internet in the 1990s or powered machinery in 1800.
Merryn Boan, Brighton
Metro gets millions but how often do you see patrons not clicking on (″Metro gets millions to keep it in profit″, 18/6). Not paying on buses and trams is common.
Louis Ferrari, Richmond
Finally
I have always thought that, for all but egregious AFL rule infractions, 50 metres was an excessive penalty. Perhaps 20 or 25 metres for lesser infringements?
David Johnston, Healesville
