Transport Minister Chris Steel has a job on his hands to seize back the public transport initiative. Photo: Ian Bushnell.
Transport Minister Chris Steel returns from leave today with a pile of work on his desk and a big challenge to regain the initiative from the Canberra Liberals.
In his extended absence, the Liberals announced a reasonable public transport policy (coincidence?) and made merry with the fact that the vaunted new electric buses had not yet made it onto the roads.
Between a policy promising no light rail after stage 2A, a new busway and an expanded e-bus fleet, even including assembling them here one day, and labelling the latest Labor procurement as ‘ghost buses’, transport spokesperson Mark Parton grabbed the headlines and headspace of Canberrans.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr and City Services Minister Tara Cheyne stepped into the breach, but the damage was done.
And it wasn’t just the Opposition.
Labor’s once-rusted-on partners in government, the Greens, had a crack at the government for being so tardy with the light rail rollout, saying it wasn’t giving enough priority to the project.
Last week, the Public Transport Association was also nipping at the government’s heels over a lack of pre-planning for extending light rail and calling for concurrent work on different stages to ensure a smoother and speedier construction program.
In its budget submission, PTCBR also called for a number of improvements to the bus network, including priority signalling, connections and timetabling, many of which the Liberals have taken on board.
Despite Ms Cheyne and Mr Steel’s office doing their best to counter these assaults, it will be up to the Transport Minister to grab the public’s attention and again put the case for a light rail network, explain why buses alone can’t be the solution to Canberra’s future public transport needs and why all of this can’t be done tomorrow.
The pushing back of the light rail schedule for stage 2A and the much more challenging 2B has given the Liberals an opening to undermine the project’s viability. They have also stoked fear about the cost, now saying it’s $4 billion-plus for both legs.
Mr Steel will have all of the advantages of incumbency and the bureaucracy at his disposal to tackle the Liberals head-on and pick apart its policy.
But he will need to do more than just rebut claims. Mr Steel will have to rekindle people’s capacity for long-term planning and take another can of polish to the light rail project.
Despite the Liberals now questioning whether even stage 1 is that successful, there are still plenty of Canberrans who want a line like the Gungahlin-City route to come to their neck of the woods.
Just a bit sooner.
Mr Steel will also have to tidy up the bus network and deliver the new ticketing system.
There are more than five months to go before polling day, so there is still plenty of time for Labor to roll out its own public transport policy full of shiny baubles. The immediate challenge is to seize back the initiative.
He will have to paint the Opposition’s policy as short-sighted and opportunistic and his own as a visionary plan in the city’s long-term interests.
In an environment of lengthening timelines, rising costs, budget pressures and decreasing attention spans, that will be no easy task.
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