Letter

Metro bashers make strange bedfellows

Re: ‘Ghost Metro’ The City News May 28, page 5. Instead of just approvingly quoting the Greens Finance spokesperson,  who appears to have got his lines direct from Barry O’Farrell’s media  office, perhaps Michael Gormly could ask him just one pertinent question: Why are the Greens, who have consistently opposed the M4 East on the basis that we should instead be investing in public transport, now opposing just such a proposal?

He could go further and ask about the “fast green rail link under
Victoria Road” which The Greens went to the last election proposing.
Perhaps such a scheme just doesn’t suit their new best buddies, the
Liberal Party. And their hopes of capturing the seat of Balmain for
Jamie Parker.

Their negative obstruction to the present  Metro – which is just the
start of a much larger system – is bad news for anyone who once
believed the Greens offered a way forward for this city.

Watching The City News fall into line with their reactionary, backward
looking, carping NIMBYism is equally disheartening. And funny how
opposition to the Metro neatly suits the interests of affected
property owners in Rozelle, those of a privatised light rail operator
nearby, and the developer groups closely aligned with it like EG
Properties.

Hasn’t Michael Gormly noticed that the big end of town like the
Tourism and Transport Forum are all fellow cheerleaders of the Greens
pet project, that tram to Dulwich Hill? Has he noticed the 14 story
towers and retail centre proposed for that line at Lewisham?

Getting pally with the Liberals gives you some mighty odd bedfellows.
The new power elite in city hall at Leichhardt –  the Greens – are
just discovering this. And apparently it turns you blind.

Russell Edwards, Drummoyne