Leaflet muddies lord mayoral race

Jason Dowling

THE battle for Melbourne's next lord mayor has turned nasty, with a Labor-aligned candidate launching an assault on the left-wing Greens in leaflets to be sent to thousands of homes and businesses.

In an attack reminiscent of state Labor's campaign for last year's Albert Park byelection, the leaflet from Labor Party member and lord mayoral candidate Peter McMullin starts with the message "No classes today, Greens Party have shut this school".

It goes on to say that it is the policy of the Greens to phase out selective government schools and asks: "Why does the Greens Party want to close MacRobertson Girls' High School & Melbourne High? And just why do people keep voting for the Greens with these type of policies?"

In the days leading up to the September 2007 Albert Park byelection, a letter authorised by the ALP's state secretary was sent to thousands of residents, criticising the Greens' policy of "phasing out selective schools". Greens' candidate Adam Bandt rejected the claim the party wanted to close schools.

He said the leaflets were a desperate smear.

"I think this shows that Labor is becoming increasingly desperate," he said.

"First they teamed up with the Liberals to run on a ticket, second they decided to preference the Liberals and now they're are delving into matters that are not even in the council's controls to try and run smear campaigns.

"This kind of negative campaigning has the hallmark of a desperate team."

Mr McMullin, who is in the same Labor Party right faction as Premier John Brumby, said the leaflet was justified.

"A lot of people within the City of Melbourne are making decisions about their education for their children and they need to know what the Greens' policies are," Mr McMullin said.

He said it was important that education was discussed, even though the council has no policy responsibility for it. Melbourne City Council had an "advocacy role" in the area.

Mr McMullin said the Greens were happy to talk about State Government transport issues.

Mr McMullin, who is a Labor Party member, said the leaflet was organised by his campaign and was not linked to the party's state headquarters.

Ballot papers for the election are being sent out and must be returned by November 28.

Read the original article at TheAge.com.au

Travelling second-class - TheAge.com.au

Paul Mees

LAST week, it was the Oaks day train debacle; this week, it's the chaos surrounding the new timetables. Melbourne's rail system has once again failed the city, leaving hapless travellers stranded on trains and at stations. Melburnians could be forgiven for wondering if the city's rails are cursed. If European cities, and even Perth, can have first-rate trains, why can't we?

...

By the 1920s, the system had been electrified and expanded. More trains left Flinders Street Station in peak hour than do today, with a service every three minutes on the Sandringham line. Reliability was high and cancellations rare. Europeans envied Melbourne for the excellence of our rail system. So why can't we transport people reliably to and from the races now?

The Department of Transport says the reason is that we don't have enough tracks, even though we have many more than in the 1920s. Sir Rod Eddington agrees, and has proposed a multibillion-dollar tunnel from Footscray to Caulfield that will take decades to build and has a price tag we can't afford. But the Eddington tunnel would not have prevented the stuff-ups on Oaks day; nor it will fix the problems created by running the Epping and Hurstbridge lines the wrong way through the city loop.

The main cause of Melbourne's rail woes is a tremendous deterioration in management and planning. Levels of efficiency that could be achieved in the 1920s, or even in the 19th century, are now claimed to be impossible in the 21st century. Things are so tangled that the public doesn't even know who to blame for the collapse of service: is it Connex, or the private company that maintains tracks and signals, or Transport Minister Lynne Kosky, or one of the many divisions of the Department of Transport?

...

The "franchising" system is a shambles and a farce, and nothing will change as long as it persists. No successful urban rail system in the world operates on the model we use in Melbourne: even Margaret Thatcher baulked at applying it to London.

We have ample evidence of the kind of management structures that produce well-run public transport: lean, dynamic, accountable regional authorities that are publicly owned but kept at arm's length from the ministerial spin cycle.

An excellent example is the Zurich Transport Network, which controls all public transport in the state (canton) of Zurich. The ZVV, which many observers regard as the best transit agency in the world, administers a public transport network as big as Melbourne's with 34 staff (the equivalent organisation in Melbourne employs more than 10 times that), of whom only six are responsible for timetables and service planning.

The Zurich staff and their jobs are set out, in German and English, on the authority's website (zvv.ch). Everyone knows where the buck stops in Zurich's public transport system.

A century ago, it was Melbourne, not Zurich that was the world leader in urban rail provision. We could become so again, but only if our public transport system is run for the benefit of its passengers, rather than its operators and administrators.

Dr Paul Mees is senior lecturer in transport planning at RMIT.

Read the whole article at TheAge.com.au

Tunnel project might not see the light of day

ROYCE MILLAR and CLAY LUCAS

THE toll tunnel centrepiece of Sir Rod Eddington's $20 billion vision for better links across Melbourne is in trouble, with road builders and operators shying away from big projects.

ConnectEast, which operates the EastLink tollway, yesterday confirmed it had its hands full making its new Ringwood-to-Frankston tollway a success.

EastLink traffic volumes and revenue are well below forecasts, with shareholders believed to be unenthusiastic about ambitious new ventures. Chairman Tony Shepherd made this clear at the annual meeting last week and said again yesterday: "ConnectEast is a single-purpose entity, and at this point we are solely focused on establishing EastLink's operational systems and on growing our traffic levels. We have no plans to invest in another road."

Transurban, which runs CityLink, has slashed job numbers in Melbourne and mapped out a debt-averse future. Under new chief executive Chris Lynch, the once active road builder will consider only "sure things".

While Transurban has not ruled out a bid for an east-west toll road, insiders told The Age the company had no intention of pursuing new Melbourne projects in the near future.

The credit squeeze has tightened dramatically since Sir Rod's report earlier this year in which he recommended a tollway beginning in Clifton Hill and ending in Footscray.

Read the original article at TheAge.com.au

Certainly what we like to see in the paper, but hey... I'm not relaxing until there's a fat lady singing. I would also hope that the State Government would listen to other reasons why the tunnel should not go ahead, so that if they can get funding, where that money would be better spent.

Canberra raps Brumby over funding - The Age

Katharine Murphy, Canberra, and Marc Moncrief

PREMIER John Brumby and Treasurer John Lenders have received a swift rebuke for their lobbying over Canberra's dwindling infrastructure dollars, with the federal minister declaring their comments irrelevant.

Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese has dismissed as a "speculative bid" recent suggestions from Victoria that the state is expecting $10 billion worth of federal funds for transport upgrades.

"Public comments by state and territory leaders will have absolutely no impact on the outcome," Mr Albanese told The Age in an interview yesterday.

...

Mr Albanese's warning to Victoria follows a three-day meeting in Sydney this week where federal policy advisers and a team of economic consultants, lead by Infrastructure Australia chairman Sir Rod Eddington, have been working to finalise the national priority list. Sources involved in the process say several governments have been asked to supply officials with better quality information about their wish-lists, and revise some of their proposals.

Infrastructure Australia will meet again early next week. Mr Albanese is yet to be briefed on the emerging priorities.

Sir Rod was "taking additional responsibility", Mr Albanese said, for driving the accelerated timetable set by the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
...

"We maintain our commitment to investing in the productive side of the economy," he said. "We will monitor these issues but we maintain our strong commitment to our infrastructure program."

Read the whole article at TheAge.com.au

Melbourne transport blueprint in doubt - TheAge.com.au

Marc Moncrief, Paul Austin and Katharine Murphy

PLANS for a dramatic redesign of Melbourne's transport system may have to be scaled back as Canberra threatens to take off the table billions of dollars promised for major projects.

A day after saying the global financial crisis had blown a "$40 billion hole" in his budget over four years, federal Treasurer Wayne Swan yesterday said at least $14billion earmarked for major projects was under threat.

Victoria is relying on a share of the money to build massive congestion-busting projects such as those recommended in Sir Rod Eddington's $20billion Melbourne transport blueprint.

State Treasurer John Lenders said yesterday Victoria was expecting at least $10billion in spending announced in May's federal budget. He said that if the money was not forthcoming, it would undermine the transport plan, expected to be released within weeks.

"If the Commonwealth does not put money into the state of Victoria, clearly the transport plan will be a smaller plan than it otherwise would be," he said.

Sir Rod's plan, released in April, includes a $9billion toll road linking the western suburbs to the Eastern Freeway and a $7billion rail tunnel from Caulfield to Footscray...

Read the whole article in TheAge.com.au

Absence makes for a distant memory for Peter McMullin

HOW soon they forget. Melbourne mayoral hopeful Peter McMullin has glossed over his Geelong and Barwon Heads connections in his election material.

Cr McMullin, as he is technically known until the end of this month, is considered a favourite to take the City of Melbourne top job.

But while he has referred in his election flyer to his former post as deputy lord mayor of Melbourne, he has not mentioned that he is also a former mayor of Geelong.

Cr McMullin has made a point of mentioning he is a resident Melbourne although he was quoted telling another newspaper early last month he had moved to Melbourne from Barwon Heads about two months ago.

"Like you, I'm a local resident," Cr McMullin told the voters of the City of Melbourne in his flyer.

"I also work in the city (as a senior consultant at a national law firm) and understand the importance of encouraging a strong local economy."

A spokesman for Cr McMullin said yesterday the former Geelong mayor had indeed moved to Melbourne but he still had a love of Barwon Heads.

"Cr McMullin is very proud of his role at the City of Greater Geelong," the spokesman said.

"Depending on how much space we have available on material dictates the amount of Cr McMullin's previous roles and interests that we are able to communicate to the voters."

The spokesman pointed to Cr McMullin's website, which he said had more space to tell the full story.

However a scan of petermcmullin.com.au found the following reference to his council experience.

"As a former Melbourne councillor and deputy lord mayor, Peter knows how council works and understands the changes that need to be made to make it work better for all who live, work and visit Melbourne," the website says.

Read the original article at geelongadvertiser.com.au

In addition to him only recently moving to Melbourne, many Barwon Heads residents were less than impressed with his stance on the issues raised in http://www.savebarwonheads.org.au.