Hills Transport News - October 2012

Let’s Get Moving

Welcome to the first Hills Transport News: the newsletter for public and private transport in the Hills. This newsletter will cover buses, trains, cars, pedestrians and light rail.

My aim as editor is to improve the dialogue between Hills residents so we can work together to improve transport in the Hills. I want this newsletter to provide unbiased, trustworthy and independent information that can be relied upon to start discussions and take action.

My Hills Transport News is a vital new initiative because we need your help. We all need to share our ideas. We all need to talk about transport in the Hills with our friends, neighbours and colleagues. We all need to contact our local members, our local councillors and 131500 feedback.

2012 is an exciting year for transport in the Hills. Over 15,000 new homes are planned for the Hills so improving transport is critical. The North West Rail Link is in the planning stage, work on the M2 widening is continuing and Hillsbus has added a number of new services. There is still more work to be done.

This newsletter will also cover the activities of The Hills Transport Working Group which is working to maximise the benefits of these improvements for Hills residents and requesting more improvements. The Hills Transport Working Group has initiated campaigns such as the M2 Cashback Scheme, consulted with with the North West Rail Link project team and the opposition transport spokesperson. Media coverage of our campaigns includes 2UE, The Daily Telegraph and various local media.

Happy travelling,
Andrew Punch
Hills Transport News editor

Our Voice in the Media

The Daily Telegraph: $5000 a Year for a 90 Minute Trip

The Daily Telegraph ran a case study on a Beaumont Hills commuter, Mr Silva. Mr Silva spends $108 per week, $5000 per year, on tolls and his commute time still takes 90 minutes.

Lobby group Hills Transport Working Group said drivers such as Mr Silva were paying too much for a poor quality service reducing productivity.

"Between now and when the M2 and Lane Cove Tunnel toll roads revert to government ownership in 2046, residents of northwest Sydney travelling to the city daily will pay $120,000 per car just in tolls," Hills Transport Working Group chair James Fiander said. "Every extra hour commuters take to get to and from work along the M2 and Lane Cove Tunnel represents a productivity loss of over $780 million per year for our city."

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/a-year-for-privilege-of-joining-the-daily-grind/story-e6freuy9-1226275201610

The Daily Telegraph: M2 Cashback

The Daily Telegraph ran a story about congestion on the M2 and the Hills Working Group’s M2 Cashback campaign.

Lobby group Hills Transport Working Group is leading the call for the cashback or compensation scheme.

"Commuters are paying a high price for a service that isn't being delivered," group chairman James Fiander said.

"The road may eventually be better once the widening has been completed. In the meantime the government should provide a cashback scheme to assist commuters."

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-nsw/drivers-want-a-return-for-the-pain-of-using-the-m2/story-fnb5f12x-1226275207090

2UE: M2 Cashback

Jason Morrison on 2UE ran a story about congestion during the construction of the M2 while leaving tolls unchanged.

Key points that Hills Transport Working Group chair, James Fiander, made:

• M2 is “reliably bad”, old roads can be worse
• Why do Hills residents miss out on cashback and need to pay the highest tolls in Sydney, when other areas have cashback - such as the M5 and formerly the M4?
• Why is the Hills different? We pay our taxes like the rest of Sydney then we pay $5000 per year extra on tolls
• The situation with the M2 is virtually a monopoly situation
• The free alternatives have been narrowed, such as Epping Rd
• Toll discount during construction would also be fair for Hills residents

http://www.2ue.com.au/blogs/2ue-blog/cash-back-for-hills-residents-on-m2/20120220-1thw6.html

In The News

North West Rail Link EIS Released, Cutting 66% of Buses

The Sydney Morning Herald has reported the release of the North West Rail Link’s first environmental impact statements. Both the Sydney Morning Herald article and a North West Rail Link press release state that buses from the Hills to the city will be cut by 66% once the North West Rail Link is complete.

The Hills district will have grown substantially when the North West Rail Link is completed, so the decision to cut 66% of existing services needs to be thoroughly questioned.

The first EIS is available for download from the North West Rail Link website.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydneys-next-big-thing--and-its-bigger-than-the-bridge-20120404-1wbwk.html

New Hillsbus Services

Seven Hillsbus services have been upgraded and one new service has been added.

Some services on the 610 route to the city have been changed to express services through the Lane Cove Tunnel. These express routes will be numbered 610X. The 619 route to Macquarie Park and 612 to North Sydney have new services.

Routes 610X, 616X, 617X and 618 will soon have new or updated services - check the new timetables.

Hillsbus has started a new route from Rouse Hill Town Centre to the City, the 607X. This service travels directly down the T-way, then down the M2 and Lane Cove Tunnel. The 607X does not go through the back streets of Rouse Hill like the 617X.

Hillsbus has also started a new service to North Sydney from Rouse Hill - the 602. According to Hillsbus it is expected that passengers from Kellyville will save around 25 minutes when travelling to North Sydney.

Unfortunately the 602 service does not go through the Lane Cove tunnel. Travelling from Riley T-way to North Sydney using the 602 is 6 minutes slower than catching the 617X into the city and catching a train back to North Sydney according to 131500.com.au

When the problem was stated, Hillsbus replied: “Hillsbus and Transport for NSW made the decision on the path for Route 602 based on an overall network assessment of how to serve all customers. Hillsbus is aware of the desire for a North Sydney express service and is investigating options how this can be accommodated.”


For more details please visit the Hillsbus website.

Upcoming Meetings

Meetings of the Hills Transport Working Group steering committee are held every second Wednesday. All members are welcome.

This month the meetings will be on the Wednesday: 3rd, 17th and 31st of October 2012.

Please check the online calendar for last minute changes or cancellations. An iCalander file is also available for smartphones and various email clients.

2012 NSW Council Elections

Introduction

You may have missed it but on Saturday, 8th of October 2012 there were elections across New South Wales for local councils.  I was a candidate for Labor in Parramatta City, Caroline Chisholm ward [PDF].

The ultimate results for this ward are unchanged: 1 Labor and 2 Liberals elected. There were swings against Labor and the vote was complicated by the former incumbent Labor councillor standing as an independent.

As the second candidate for this ward it was very unlikely that I would be elected. Labor has never had a second councillor elected. Although a Labor approved independent, Chris Worthington, was elected at one point.

There was a great deal of positive feedback from the community and the whole experience was very valuable.

How Voting Works

First I might outline how the voting works. You might wonder why there were 3 candidates for each party.

There are three council positions, so each group or party to nominate up to three candidates. The top three candidates after preferences are distributed will be elected. The preferences are specified by the voter, groups do not register preferences with the election commission for council elections.

In more detail - to be elected outright a candidate needs 25% plus 1 vote.
This 25%+1 figure may seem a bit odd at first. When three candidates are elected outright the three candidates require a total of 75%+3 votes, meaning only a maximum of 3 candidates can be elected.

As explained in wikipedia the... election proceeds according to the following steps:

1. Any candidate who has reached or exceeded the quota is declared elected.
2. If a candidate has more votes than the quota, that candidate's surplus votes are transferred to other candidates. Votes that would have gone to the winner instead go to the next preference listed on their ballot.
3. If no one new meets the quota, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and that candidate's votes are transferred.
4. This process repeats until either a winner is found for every seat or there are as many seats as remaining candidates.

When voting above the line the surplus votes in step 2 & 3 are first transferred to the next candidate in the same group / party, then are transferred to the group / party indicated by the preferences.

Why a Party?

One of the excellent things about council elections is that they are relatively cheap. For the price of a car someone can mount a decent campaign for a council ward.

State or federal campaigns are much more expensive.

With so much accessibility to independents why would anyone stand or vote for parties such as Labor or Liberal? Standing t tfor a major party means that you are part of a team.

If the party has had success in the past then a candidate can continue the successful policies. Many of the supporting people who made a previous term successful can be turned to for advice. This can include current or previous councillors in the ward and surrounding wards.

The reputation of a party can persist beyond a single term, as can the issues that a party stands for. For example most people would recognise that Labor generally stands for social justice, environmental preservation, heritage preservation and cultural improvement (whether we achieve it is a different question).

In comparison it is often difficult to ascertain even whether an independent is conservative or progressive. Independents have more to communicate about their platform because there is less familiar territory for voters.

Party councillors are also accountable to party members whom live in the electorate. Thus there is a structure in place for feedback to councillors from the local community. Independents need to create this structure themselves.

I welcome the fresh voices that independents bring to local councils but there are also different benefits to established parties.

Campaign

The campaign was off to a slow start. The former Labor councillor for Caroline Chisholm, Paul Barber, was unhappy about not being preselected. It took him a long time for him to decide that he wanted to withdraw from the number 2 position, then it took a long time for him to formally withdraw. He finally decided to run as an independent.

Shahadat asked me to run as number 3, while Paul Barber still had rights to the number 2 position. I was happy to do so and expressed that if there was someone better suited I would be happy to give it up too. Talking to other people the issue of female representation was raised, so I suggested to Shahadat that a woman should take my place if someone suitable could be found.

As it worked out Paul Barber dropped out, so I ended up in number 2 position and Deborah May was in number 3 position.

Realistically Deborah and I had no chance of winning. Labor has never had a second party candidate in Caroline Chisholm ward. Although Chris Worthington was successful as a Labor-approved independent. Chris is a Labor party member.

I was hopeful that the Greens candidate, Annie Nielsen, may have a chance this time but more about that later.

Shahadat and his wife Jintana were very organised. Shahadat and I focussed on shopping centres rather than door-knocking due to the limited time available. Shahadat carried most of the load - with extra shopping centre visits, train stations. We managed to send out two leaflets using only volunteers. The volunteers were very reliable.

The campaign was a very positive experience and I learned a great deal about the organisation that is required for a campaign.

Technology

The heavy-lifting of the campaign was still traditional electioneering. Mail-outs, posters and shopping centres were the most effective forms of communication.

I set up a Facebook page for the campaign and Sameer set up a website for the campaign. I used material that had been already approved for other brochures, so authorising the material would be as fast as possible.

I did an experiment with paid advertising on Facebook and Google adwords. The most important feature when using these tools is geographic targetting. Both Facebook and Google offer targetting down to the suburb level.

I found that geographic targeting worked quite well but there was some overflow into completely unrelated geographical areas such as Melbourne. We received 300 likes. A foul-mouthed conservative called Gary made a few comments which related to the local area, so obviously the advertising was effective at targeting the local community. Thanks Gary for validating my advertising!

During the campaign the posters at my home were vandalised with racist graffiti and I received a letter which in context threatened vandalism against my car. In addition other volunteers who had posters in their yard had threatening phone calls.

Fortunately security equipment is now cheap and widely available. I installed security lights in the driveway and two video cameras - one overlooking the car and one overlooking the signs. I bought a cheap video capture card from a local computer shop.

The ubiquity and cheapness of this equipment meant I could exercise my democratic right to ran as a candidate and to support the party that I choose.

Results

The final results are available from Elections NSW. The primary count was available by about 8pm on the night of the election, the final count including quota distribution was not available until the following Thursday.

Labor received 21.07% of the formal first preference vote - which is 4 percentage points less than the required 25%+1 votes. The former Labor candidate turned independent, Paul Barber, received 9.50%. In the previous election Paul achieved 33% as the Labor candidate - the current total of the two, 30.57%, is about 3 percentage points lower.

The Greens achieved 8.80% of the formal first preference vote - which is down from the 11% that Annie Nielsen achieved as an independent.

The informal vote was 1,100 - or about 6% of the total vote. Our scrutineers estimated that about half the informal votes had the intention of voting Labor. The possible 3 percentage points would not have had an impact in this election but in a number of cases it could make the difference.

There was a swing against Labor - in fact there was a swing against Labor in most councils in New South Wales - many people were positive but there were a number of people who expressed dissatisfaction.

Voters can usually separate levels of government, I don't think consistent swings observed across New South Wales would occur unless there was resentment at a state or federal level.

Although Labor and other progressive candidates did not make any progress at this election, at least we retained the council position - which a number of other wards did not.

Greens, Preferences and Informals

UPDATE:  It has been brought to my attention that Labor could have won on its own if there was a run-off between Labor and the conservatives. The conservatives could not have won the third council position in this election.

Labor received 21.07% of the first preference vote. The conservatives received a total of 60.63% of the vote. After the 50% is removed (it should be 2 more votes as well) the conservatives are left with 10.63% of the vote - assuming all the preferences flowed to one candidate with no exhaustion.

The preference swaps were still helpful for comfortably reaching quota.

To make up the difference to reach quota we need about 673 votes. We could not have made up this difference without the solidarity of both the Greens and Paul Barber.

Paul Barber's preferences were helpful and Paul did the right thing in honouring the preference swap in his how-to-votes.

Strangely despite Paul Barber being a former Labor candidate and a preference swap in the how-to-votes, only 507 votes out of the progressive total of 1,717 came through to Labor. 137 votes went to the Liberals and an enormous 900 votes were thrown away (the voter's preferences exhausted). This shows that nothing can be assumed in an election.

Labor received 404 votes directly from the Greens and 94 went to Paul Barber. 852 votes were thrown away by being exhausted. This is somewhat understandable as the Greens and Labor are distinct parties, although there is a certain amount of overlap on some issues.

In some other council areas Labor did not preference the Greens to reduce informal votes or because no preference swap deal could be reached. Actually the preference swap deal only covers the how-to-vote - it is ultimately the voter's numbering that determines preferences in a council election, even when voting above the line.

There are a few good reasons why it makes sense to do a swap in Caroline Chisholm: Annie is a good progressive candidate who would make an excellent contribution if elected to council, the Greens in Caroline Chisholm ward are very friendly and professional, and it stretches the imagination that we would gain more votes through reduced informals than we gained from the swap with the Greens.

Progressive candidates also need to keep solidarity because an exhausted progressive vote is effectively a vote for the conservatives. I am hoping that next election Labor will be in a position to return the help we received from other progressive candidates.

Labor could not have maintained the current council position without the preferences from other progressive candidates - otherwise we would be facing three conservative councillors.

Written by Andrew Punch.