I haven’t lived in Australia for a few years, but I like to keep an eye on what is going on there. The NSW State Elections are coming up next weekend, with the Liberal-National Coalition challenging the incumbent Labor administration. The Coalition is led by the Liberal’s Barry O’Farrell and the Sydney Morning Herald today reported his latest bid to impress voters with a spiffy new public transport policy –
Train commuters will save as much as $108 a year in fares if the Coalition is elected on Saturday.
Announcing the new fare pricing structure this morning, Mr O’Farrell said commuters would save money if they switched from weekly to monthly tickets and would no longer be caught in the long Monday morning ticket queues.
“My policy results in cheaper fares, shorter queues, rewards regular commuters and encourages people to leave their cars at home,” Mr O’Farrell said.
Under the Coalition’s plans, monthly tickets will be $9 cheaper, quarterly tickets will be $25 cheaper and yearly tickets will be $100 cheaper.
Unfortunately Mr O’Farrell didn’t think it important to explain who will pay for the generous savings he wants to give commuters. Perhaps he didn’t want to point out that that would be the owners of the train system – the taxpaying voters he is trying so hard to impress.
What is arguably just as bad is that the Sydney Morning Herald didn’t think it important to ask him to explain this.