Inner West residents make view on bus privatisation clear in council elections

Votes are still being counted, but the early results from the weekend’s local council elections show that Inner-West residents are not happy with the NSW Liberal Party’s privatisation of their bus routes.

Early results indicate there will be a big swing of around 5.6% away from the Liberal party in the newly merged council, which is divided into five wards – Ashfield, Balmain, Leichhardt, Marrickville and Stanmore.

RTBU Bus Divisional Secretary, Chris Preston, said it’s clear that a contributing factor to the move away from the Liberal Party is the Government’s bus privatisation debacle.

“The Liberal Party is clearly on the nose in the inner-west and there’s no doubt that’s in part due to the State Government’s attack on their local buses,” Mr Preston said.

“People don’t want to vote for a party that clearly doesn’t care about their public transport needs.

“This should come as a real wake up call to the Berejiklian Government. Voters are making it very clear that they’re unhappy with the government’s handling of a number of things, including the privatisation of our essential public transport networks.

“You can’t just wander into an area, attack their public transport network and expect no one to notice. The sooner the NSW Government realises that, the better.

“We know the NSW Government has its sights set on other bus routes to privatize. If they’ve got any respect for the people of NSW, they’ll look at the weekend’s results and seriously reconsider those plans.”