1998_09_september_leader12sep action

ACTION bus drivers appear to have priced themselves out of the market.

Earlier this month they rejected a new enterprise agreement that had been negotiated over the past 12 months. It would have enabled a new network of services to be introduced. The sticking points were over broken shifts, casual employees and the abandonment of leisure leave (a week of instead of rostered days off) for new employees.

ACTION bus drivers are the costliest in Australia to hire. Labor costs are 19 per cent higher than the average government bus operator and 100 per cent higher than the average private bus operator. The upshot is that ACTION is running at a deficit of about $50 million a year, perhaps higher if budget overruns are considered.

The physical upkeep costs of the vehicles are running marginally above other public-sector bus fleets, so the problem seems to be mainly with the drivers.

The enterprise agreement would not have enabled ACTION to run at a profit, but it would have cuts costs by about 20 per cent. It would have at least put ACTION within acceptable loss limits. There are plenty of social and environmental reasons why public transport should run at a loss. Many people in the community cannot afford to provide their transport or are not able to drive. Without public transport, the city would grind to a halt in peak hours. Taxpayers, therefore do not mind subsidising a public transport system. But there are limits. Taxpayers expect governments to be prudent with their money. They rightly expect governments to get best value for money out of the labour and capital they hire. Moreover, they expect prudence from government, not just to reduce tax and rates, but also because if governments use money wisely they can provide more in the way of services for the community. To the extent that the Transport Workers Union will not permit efficiencies in the bus system, they are depriving the community of greater services in transport and other fields. For example, more casual and spilt shirts would enable more bus services for the same outlay.

On any measure, the ACT drivers are hopelessly inefficient. The ACT Government has been very patient. It has negotiated and warned, but to no avail. The union membership has rejected the changes to bring the ACT bus system to bear reasonable comparison with other system. Ours is the most expensive to run. The people of the ACT are getting the poorest public-transport service per dollar in Australia.

The Government has had enough. After threatening and warning, it has at last called the bluff of the Transport Workers Union. Today it will advertise for expressions of interest for private companies to take over the running and management of the bus service, while the government will retain the ownership of the buses and other infrastructure.

There may be some initial difficulties industrially, because either the existing bus drivers would have to be paid out redundancy, which could be expensive, or the new owner will be saddled with transmission-of-business provisions which could result in existing conditions being transferred. However, in the long run it would be better for a private firm to take over the buses. This is because the bus service would not become a political football, whereby the drivers can strike or otherwise disrupt services in the hope that the Government would get the blame and cave in the face of the possibility of losing votes.

It is about time the Government acted so that the people of Canberra get better value for money from their bus network.

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