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Ada Lee

REDFERN: Denise Clark goes through Redfern Station once a week. Every time, it is “a nightmare,” she said. Five years ago, a slight kneecap injury spiralled into disaster after a surgeon made a mistake. Now, Ms Clark struggles to walk steadily with a severed nerve, a rectangular machine fastened to her leg and four artificial ligaments and a screw installed in her knee.

Even her journey to meet me in Redfern proved challenging. “I nearly cried twice,” she said. Holding the handrail, Ms Clark recalled being bumped heavily by two men rushing down the stairs.

As of 2011, Redfern is the sixth busiest train station in Sydney with over 46,000 barrier counts each day. With 12 platforms, it is second only to Central in interchange possibilities. There are no lifts or ramps.

In February, the SSH reported on the next stage of the Lift Redfern campaign. A fun, new marketing strategy of Phase Two has been to ask university students to devise a method of transporting an elephant onto a Redfern platform.

On April 11, engineering students Oasika Faiz and Matt Broom were announced the winners of the elephant competition with their hydraulic pulley design. Other less technical responses involved fairy dust, releasing mice or poking the elephant with a giant pointy stick. Lift Redfern will soon launch a similar competition for children.

Labor Sydney Councillor, Linda Scott, expressed full support, saying lifts at Redfern are “overdue”. Living in Erskineville as a mother of two young children, Ms Scott regularly has to ask for help when dragging her children’s pram up and down the station steps. “It’s just not good enough that people have to rely on the never-ending kindness of strangers,” she said.

Lift Redfern campaigners are frustrated by successive NSW governments’ inaction and broken promises. Key organiser, Bill Yan, said: “We’ve been overlooked and we want answers.”

Lift Redfern supporter, Ross Smith, said: “Ms Berejiklian [Transport Minister] is treating Redfern Station as the elephant in her room. There is a demonstrated need. There is also a marked diversion to publicly acknowledging and meeting that need.”

According to Mr Smith, “Redfern station was to be funded by the sale of government assets around the immediate area”. He said: “They’ve sold the properties but they haven’t done [up] the station.”

Denise Clark wants to see lifts at Redfern Station. “I don’t know how many more people [the government is] going to have to see fall down the stairs or injure themselves on the stairs before they do something about it,” she said. Until then, her commuting will remain a struggle.

The Liberal government has come under criticism recently, with numerous claims that no real progress on transport has been made since they won power in last year’s landslide election. Government officials are heralding today’s announcement as the answer to these doubts.

“We are very proud of this announcement, and rightly so,” said Premier Barry O’Farrell. “How can anyone say that this government is doing nothing now?”

Mr O’Farrell observed that this is the third new plan announced this year, noting that the previous Labor government had generally waited at least nine months between transport plans.

Former Premier Nick Greiner, the head of Infrastructure NSW, pointed out the progress that the government has made since the previous plan.

“We are completely tearing-up Parrammatta Road now.” Mr Greiner said. “This is much more radical than the tunnel under Parrammatta road that we had planned before.”

“We have also decided to focus on expediting construction of the North-West rail link.”

Some residents of Sydney were not so sanguine.

“This all sounds wonderful, but who cares if they turn Parrammatta Road into a bloody super-highway?” asked Liverpool resident Cid Ne Seider. “It’s too bloody expensive to park my f**kin’ car anyway! This lot is just as bad as the last lot!”

Coogee resident and ADF Sergeant Neve Seth Welchman agreed, saying, “you know it’s a bad sign when you go on a tour of Afghanistan and find yourself admiring the efficiency of the public transport system in Kandahar.”

NSW Opposition Leader John Robertson also condemned the report, saying that Tony Abbott is a horrible misogynist and is not fit to be Prime Minister. Meanwhile, Greens leader David Shoebridge condemned the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and called for a complete ban on commercial fishing in the Tasman.

Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian rejected these criticisms, telling Major Karnage that, “this plan is so good, the people of Sydney will not know what hit them. In fact, they may not even realise that they have been hit!”

According to Mr Greiner, Infrastructure NSW is not taking its responsibility to the people of NSW lightly.

“We have just used the windfall from cutting the education budget to launch a whole new inquiry into our planning process,” he said. “We aim to have a new plan every two months by 2015.”

Mr Greiner also said that the government are due to begin construction on the new transport system by 2020, although he stressed that this is subject to the next transport plan, due to be released in December.

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No real politicians were interviewed in the writing of this blog post.

Posted with Blogsy

It seems like we get on the bus (which may or may not be running late, no fear, this is not an anti-Sydney Buses/Public Transport tyraid!), we amble on, putting our prepaid tickets into the machine to rack up another numbered trip on our ‘My Bus’, ‘My Multi’ or whatever ‘My Something’ you may have! We navigate our way to an available seat, preferably one where you’ll be the only one and there’s a free seat next to you, because golly forbid you sit next to someone who

- has music too loud

- sings to themselves

- takes up too much of your seat

- coughs or sneezes

It really is a minefield on these rush hour buses!

What always amazes me is people’s ability to block entirely everything except ‘when to push the stop button’, out of their mind when they take the bus! We become bus zombies! The moment we secure that all awesome seat on the bus, our minds go into something of an overdrive of ‘nothingness’. You know this state of being yes?

It can, and does, manifest itself in numerous ways;

- reading a book non-stop until your stop, when you don’t even need to look up out of the book to see if your stop is the next one

- staring almost blankly at the front of the bus, not looking sideways, and only really responding when the person you so diligently chose to share air and space with when you first joined this square people mover needs to get up if their stop is before yours.

- you’re absentminded to the point that you yourself forget your spot

I sometimes wonder if the buses and public transport would be much different without social media on our phones, ipods, ipads, even the good ol’ book – seriously! When have you ever been soooo intrigued by a book that you just can’t say a pleasant hello to someone (I mean, I love books… ALOT… but I’d prefer to have a little chat!) Sometimes the scene in ‘Meet me in St Louis’ really does make complete sense!

Then there’s those people that think ‘workout’ buses and trains are a good idea – how about NO! I don’t like being in a confined space with people for long periods of time, particularly not sweaty, huffing, dripping people doing their best to look like Elle McPherson!

A few of my friends said that I would be their worst nightmare on a plane! And you know what, I really think I would be! But I don’t care! On my trip to the UK, I went alone and I was forced to talk to people, I had no choice! Well, I did, but you get my point.

I said hi and had a chat to the people on the plane next to me, I met people and chatted with them in airport lounges, pubs, on little tours, when I visited somewhere! I have pictures with a young group of students who I helped look after on the HMS Belfast when I was in London one day (There was only one teacher, 3 physically ill students and 15 other boys and girls let loose on a military ship – if figured she needed the help!) They showed me around London for a little after and I got a picture with them)! I also met some really lovely people that somehow just made my trip and my life brighter! And who knows who you might just meet The amount of photos I have from my trip of the people I randomly met and spoke with is outstanding, and it reminds me that sometimes joy and getting to know someone happens just ‘because’!

And then there’s the little kid in me that wonders if you’re ever really too old to do this….

I love people, I love talking to people, learning about the world, getting to know even the tiniest things about someone, because everyone deserves to feel like their ideas, their words, their little anecdotes, their lives, mean something. (Unless you’re a tyrant, militant, dictator or complete a*$34013!… even then, your words means something to you and some who follow you!)

I hope maybe next time you’re on a bus, train, plane, carriage, tour, anything where you’re surrounded by people you don’t know, you say hi- because it WILL mean something, you and the person you talk to are guaranteed to get something out of it! So go for it!

Love Lep
xxxx

ps. if you don’t like the sound of this, then pray you don’t get stuck with me on the plane one day

Serious PS: I am in no way trying to put down the importance of ‘stranger danger’ and it is not meant in this way or for a younger age bracket!

The Sydney Monorail: known in folklore as the inspiration for the Marge vs. The Monorail episode of 'The Simpsons'

In a devastating blow to the lucrative American tourist demographic, Sydney’s somewhat iconic monorail will cease to exist in a takeover plan completed by Barry O’Farrell’s Liberal government. Coming as both a surprise and blatantly obvious move, the government has bought back the monorail system in a bid costing $19.8 million dollars.

Despite a passionate argument from monorail supporters, the O'Farrell government could not be swayed.

Initially claimed to be a ‘cost-saving maneuver’, the O’Farrell government have identified the Monorail’s rogue activities as the number one reason for removing the monorail service. Minister for Transport Gladys Berejiklian has supported the takeover from former owner, Metro Transport Sydney.  “Essentially they acted out of line with all other public transport options throughout the state. More often than not the monorail ran on time, was never affected by traffic issues and was far too expensive for ratbags to afford to ride on. How can we enable a service which sticks to its timetable to continue to run in such a timely manner?”

Minister Berejiklian told members of the press that she hopes a similarly costly and largely ineffective light rail network alternative will be implemented somewhere in the next 5, 10 or 15 years. Maybe.

As a former Labor government staffer, I take my hat off to former Premier Kristina Keneally for getting out of bed every day. The same goes for the campaign team. Election campaigns are exhausting & difficult when you know you’re going to win (2003) and when you believe you will win (2007). When you are on a hiding to nothing, it must have been difficult to muster the will to live. I am also proud that despite a near universal hatred of the party, the ALP fielded candidates in every one of the 93 Legislative Assembly seats, people who stood up knowing the electorate wants to take a cricket bat to the party & you’re the new ball. 

It’s also no time to be churlish: Premier O’Farrell has won a thumping majority. There has been plenty of commentary flying around that he only had to stay on his feet to move into Level 40, Governor Macquarie Tower, but that’s really not true. O’Farrell & a few members of his opposition team (most notably “I’m only speaking to Gladys” Berejklian) did work hard at making themselves visible and exploiting Labor Government weaknesses in key portfolios; adopting the vomit principle to the perception of spin over substance & a ‘decisions for donations’ culture resonated with people when key projects were announced, delayed, reannounced, included in ‘record infrastructure spending’ Budget statements & promised anew. The new Premier may have run the smallest target campaign in history (I know where he stands on Part 3A of the Planning Act, but that’s about it) but he ran it faultlessly. The ALP was unable to make a dent in O’Farrell’s tight kitchen cabinet; & the religious right was largely obscured from view. The ALP ran full-tilt negative while the chief salesperson smiled. O’Farrell remained authentic while promising to restore NSW to first among equals, deliver better services and reverse the infrastructure deficit crippling growth.

The Greens won their first lower house seat and increased their numbers in the upper house. Congratulations. Unfortunately, they don’t hold the balance of power. They are just as set for a long, cold four years as the ALP and the lower house independents. I haven’t run through my seat-by-seat predictions, but my 14-20 ALP MPs has ended up being very close to the mark. Some seats I had given up (Keira, Cabramatta, Marrickville) were held; others (Monaro, Balmain, Granville) that I had hoped would be retained were lost, valiantly by quality candidates, all competent Ministers. Walking into the Bear Pit facing 70-odd Government MPs will require every ounce of steel each ALP MP can muster. They dished it out for 16 years and there is no way Government MPs will let them forget it. The lustre of the independents has worn off. The Nationals hate Richard Torbay with a passion; the Liberals will be eyeing off Sydney with Clover Moore surely in her last term and if they play their cards right in the Hunter, they will be in with a shot at wresting Lake Macquarie from Greg Piper’s hands in four years. They will also have their eye on Balmain. It will be interesting to see whether the tradition of granting independents one question a week will continue, & whether that courtesy will be extended to The Greens’ Jamie Parker.

As for the LegCo, where do you want to start? As I feared, the ALP’s four lost seats split conservative in the whole: one for The Shooters, one for the CDP and one for The Nationals. The final count – 19 for the LNP; 14 for the ALP; 5 for The Greens, 2 each for the Shooters & the CDP. The Government does not hold a majority; they will, as every Minister I worked for, have to negotiate with the cross-benchers and brief the Opposition. How the Government navigates the LegCo will be interesting. The Premier has stated he will not bow to minority interests, so a ‘ban the burqa’ Bill may not be on the cards … however, many see the sidelining of Environment shadow spokesperson, Catherine Cusack, from the Ministry as a sop to the Shooters, & if you look at several ’social justice’ issues: the Medically Supervised Injecting Room; same-sex adoption; equalisation of the age of consent; occupational health and safety; stem-cell research; transgender discrimination; affordable housing … where will the Government, with 70 members in the LA, a further 19 in the LC come to a landing? Will the Premier let the ‘minority interests’ in the Liberal and Nationals’ party rooms (let alone the minor parties) go unheard?

Make no mistake: those interests exist. The Rev. Fred Nile has introduced three bills on abortion information since 2006 (each of them allowed to lapse); four attempts to ban alcohol advertising; and three goes at repealing anti-discrimination amendments outlawing vilification of homosexuals. That is just a sample you can find filed under the letter ’A’. The Shooters? For starters, they want to open National Parks for hunting. Also, school children to be taught the way of the gun. The Nationals will want serious reform of (perhaps repeal) of almost all land use laws. Our marine parks will probably go. Then there is the right-wing of the Liberal Party. It may be a broad church, the Liberal Party, but there is plenty of room for Christian conservatives.

Courting the Labor caucus was akin to herding cats. Premier O’Farrell may need a lesson in taming tigers to keep his backbenchers happy. A great many of them are fresh faces. They have won electorates which would previously been thought unthinkable. They will all want to be seen to be delivering for the people who voted for them. The Nationals (or Agrarian Socialists) will be aggrieved at losing a Cabinet spot & desperate to show voters they are not along for the ride but carry real punch. That said, the Liberals did the heavy lifting, winning six out of eight seats in the Hunter, all of the Central Coast and a swathe of Western Sydney seats. The Liberal party won the election; the Nationals reclaimed seats they used to hold.

The good news: clearly, for a social progressive, the failure of Pauline Hanson to gain a seat on the red leather benches for eight years, and the repudiation of Family First (The Rev Dr Gordon Moyes unsuccessful in his attempt to fight Nile from the outside) are good outcomes. Mind you, Pauline has a point about being disadvantaged by optional-preferential above the line voting. She almost got across the line today because the political landscape is so poisonous her past was rarely discussed – she was treated more like the ‘Dancing With The Stars Pauline’ than the lazy bigot she is. The election of Jeremy Buckingham will hopefully rally those who believe in climate change and live west of the Great Dividing Range and demonstrate a progressive agenda is not the preserve of the inner-city latté sippers or Byron Bay.

Believe it or not, there is some good news for the ALP – if they play it right. The Premier, in my view, has made a few mistakes straight out of the gate. He has set out his stall with the clubs and pubs over the poker machine reforms. He has given portfolios to some old warhorses in a fairly obvious gold watch pension plan, but also because there are very few people in the Government with prior experience as Government MPs, let alone as Ministers. In the words of his own media release, he elevated Victor Dominello and Robyn Parker to the ministry because of electoral results, not their competence or incompetence. Being a good Minister is bloody difficult. I take my hat off to anyone who stands at the despatch box during Question Time. There are a myriad of issues, systems and people who can stuff your day before it’s begun. While the Government will be able to blame Labor for the entirety of its first term and get away with most of it, O’Farrell has cultivated a perception that he can ‘fix’ NSW. Good luck with meeting the inevitable expectation gap.

Most seriously and unnecessary, Premier O’Farrell has wrought political humiliation on his Treasurer, Mike Baird. Not only is Baird ranked below George Souris on the Ministerial list by seniority, his legislative load has been significantly stripped and handed over to the Minister for Finance and Services, Greg Pearce. Appointing Michael Daley to Shadow both Pearce and Baird is a tactical win for John Robertson. Firstly, Daley is an excellent Parliamentary performer. He can look at the financial state of affairs in its entirety. Mike Baird is going to sit in the ninth spot on the front bench. In Bear Pit terms, that is Siberia. Prepping for Question Time is going to be difficult given that his office will rely on briefs from the office of a man who has essentially usurped his power. Left to his own devices by his leader, Baird handled the election costings announcement abysmally. How is he going to put together, let alone take questions on a mini-Budget in May without control of many of the Acts and agencies which bring in revenue? It is ridiculous. Ministerial offices and departments can descend quite easily to a kind of internecine warfare that could play to the ALP’s advantage. If I were running parliamentary tactics, I would ask Mike Baird five questions every sitting day until he cracks. He can be targeted as the weak link in the Government, simply because he has been put in that position by his own Premier. Opposition in large is about taking scalps. Take Baird’s first, and fast. Then wait and see how things shake out. Who starts leaking. Who is befriended at the Members Bar. Who doesn’t feel the love. Who has been overlooked, or dumped. The sitting members who haven’t won a ministerial suite never will; thwarted ambition is difficult to swallow. With a Government that barely fits into the Parkes room, ructions are inevitable unless O’Farrell and his staff keep a very tight leash and give a lot of love.

The other positive? The decimation of the ALP might just get it through their thick skulls: that utter bastardry does not make for a healthy, respected party, let alone good government.

I wish them all well. At the moment, I reserve my contempt for the 131,218 people who took the time to go to a polling place & put a blank LegCo ballot into the box. Congratulations. You won the 20th seat by a mile.

Gladys Berejiklian – Liberals

Current Member of Parliament, Recontesting
Phone 02 9439 4199
Fax 02 9439 9299
Email willoughby@parliament.nsw.gov.au
Website https://www.nsw.liberal.org.au/legislative-assembly/gladys-berejiklian.html
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Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_Berejiklian
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Philip Brown – Christian Democrats

Phone 0419 403 902
Fax
Email brownsdistributors@gmail.com
Website http://www.cdp.org.au/nsw-candidates/willoughby.html
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Robert McDougall – Greens

Phone 0405 638 199
Fax
Email willoughby@nsw.greens.org.au
Website http://nsw.greens.org.au/people/rob-mcdougall and http://willoughbygreens.wordpress.com/
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Robert-McDougall-Greens-for-Willoughby/112639745474118
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Chris Simpson – Labor

Phone
Fax
Email LaborForWilloughby@gmail.com
Website http://www.chrismsimpson.com/
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Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/ChrisMSimpson
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Current Member
Gladys Berejiklian, Liberals

Postcodes
2060, 2062, 2063, 2064, 2065, 2066, 2067, 2068, 2069, 2089, 2090

Suburbs
Artarmon, Cammeray, Castle Cove, Castlecrag, Chatswood, Chatswood West, Cremorne, Lane Cove, Middle Cove, Naremburn, North Sydney, North Willoughby, Willoughby, Willoughby East