Mundey and Pilger ferry public hope

Two of the nation’s leading activists, Jack Mundey and John Pilger, are behind a community campaign against privatisation of Sydney Ferries as the State Government’s decision on ownership of the fleet reaches its final months.

A parliamentary enquiry, The Walker Report, recommended fleet replacement and privatisation after five harbour fatalities in 2007.

Two French multi-national companies, Veolia (which operates Sydney’s light rail and mono-rail) and Transdev, were short-listed for the contract when tenders closed on August 21.

On that day, union activist Jack Mundey led a ‘Save Our Sydney Ferries’ protest at Circular Quay.

“Our green and gold ladies of the harbour epitomise its working class heritage. Selling them off is like plastering a ‘for sale’ sign across the Sydney Opera House. Some things are just too important to sell,” Mundey said.

In a much-viewed clip on YouTube, dissident journalist John Pilger said: “This is just as important as the green bans… time for the unions to mount a very imaginative and robust campaign.”

Pilger said it would be “an end to spirit of public service”.

“The whole sense of doing something for the community, that whole unspoken ethos would go,” he said.

Wages, as well as the number of ferry journeys, would decrease with privatisation of the government-funded service, he said, urging investment rather than sale.

Ferry reliability has increased to 99.5 per cent, and vessel incidents on the harbour have dropped from 109 in 2007/08 to 61 in 2008/09. On time running is at 98.1 per cent – higher than buses (95.6 per cent) and trains (93.4 per cent).

Maritime Union of Australia assistant secretary, Paul Garret, said, “These statistics show that Sydney Ferries are safe and reliable”.

A spokesperson for the Department of Transport, Alan Walmsley, said the evaluation process would be finalised by the end of the year. “This process does not commit the government to privatising Sydney Ferries,” he said.

Transport Minister David Campbell said that if the two private contractors could not beat benchmarks set by Sydney Ferries, the service would remain public.

The community campaign was nourished last month when Veolia and Transdev- the two short-listed companies- were stripped of their contracts to run Melbourne’s trains and trams respectively.

– By Matt Khoury