Unite campaign Media Release May 23rd The newly established Fightback! campaign is organising a protest outside the Transport Minister’s office calling on the State Government to scrap the bungled myki ticketing system and to instead make public transport free.
The details of the protest are: 4pm Friday May 25 outside the Transport Ministers Office and the Department of Transport, 121 Exhibition Street in the Melbourne CBD.
In Melbourne myki is a dirty word. Already more than $1.35 billion has been spent on its development and it still doesn’t work properly! Compare this to the mere $350 million per year (adjusted for inflation) spent on Melbourne’s tram and train network before privatisation.
Improvements to myki could be made, but only at a further cost to taxpayers. Rather, the Fighback! campaign is demanding that the public transport system be brought back into public ownership and be made free.
Fightback! coordinator Mel Gregson said “It is estimated that privatisation has cost almost taxpayers over $2 billion more than public ownership. Rather than private transport operators profiteering off the need for people to travel for work and study, the system should be made free.
“At this point the annual government subsidies paid to private transport companies have reached $1.56 billion. The cost of running the system for free has been estimated at as little as $340 million per year. Even the highest estimates for free public transport are less than half of what taxpayers are paying now!”
“If the public transport system was in public hands we could stop wasting millions on subsidies to private operators and instead use that money to improve and extend public transport infrastructure. At the moment Baillieu and Mulder are content handing over taxpayers’ money to their big business mates. We want this to end.” Mel said.
“We want to see the public transport system expanded and made more accessible. Myki is actually making the transport system more inconvenient to use” Mel said.
Fightback! is a new campaign set up to address the rising cost of living. Among other things public transport costs are rising faster than wages and benefits. Fightback! believes it is time we put an end to this and stop the dramatic shift in wealth from ordinary people to the big business elite.
For more information or interviews contact:
Email: fightbackcampaign@hotmail.com.au
Visit: www.fightback.org.au