Council Comment

with Merv King

Local rail is the election issue

The return of our train on the Casino-Murwillumbah line has become one of the important federal election issues.

And that is surprising because providing train services is a State Government responsibility.

Local people have watched in bemusement while the Federal Coalition and federal Labor have made offer and counter offer.

Federal Labor are promising $150m to bring our train back after the election, while the Coalition are promising $30m to bring it back immediately and then more money once the economics of fixing up the line are known.

In my view, Transport Minister Michael Costa should accept the Federal Coalition's offer because it is enough to do the job and do it now.

Thirty million dollars over two years is a lot of money - and it is a sizeable down-payment on fixing up the entire line to a reasonable standard.

The alternative has too much uncertainty.

All the Councils of the Northern Rivers have joined together to support the current independent study by Price WaterhouseCoopers and I am hopeful that the study will show what train workers and experts have been saying for some time.

That is, that the line does not need a huge amount of money spent on it to return it to a useable condition.

I took an inspection tour on the line recently, and can report that it can be put into a reasonable condition fairly swiftly - provided the political will is there to do so.

If that were to happen, then it is the expertise and skill of the local rail workers that will be crucial.

Yet these same employees are out of a job as of last Friday, and many of them are now considering taking redundancy offers.

That would be a great loss to our region because it is these men who can start the train again quickly should there be a change of political will.

Once again, it is the State Government, and Mr Costa, who can act to remove the uncertainty.

That is why our community desperately needs Mr Costa to review his blinkered approach to our train.

I am confident that we are close to getting our train back but as a community we must continue to ask Minister Costa to justify why he has taken the train away.

The reasons we have heard so far just don't stack up.