The full extent of the Berejiklian Government’s deception about the use of non-air-conditioned trains in Campbelltown has been revealed in documents obtained under freedom of information by Campbelltown MP Greg Warren.
The documents show that in January 2017 the Sydney Trains timetable was amended to allocate 30 non-air-conditioned trains to the T2 Airport line between Macarthur and the CBD every week.
This is at complete odds with public comments previously made by Gladys Berejiklian, says Mr Warren.
He says that on June 2, 2014, during her time as Transport Minister, Ms Berejiklian claimed that “100 per cent of timetabled Sydney Trains services are air-conditioned’’ and that “the days of sitting in a hot train in summer or a cold train in winter are over”.
Mr Warren said that rail commuters in the Macarthur region were right to be outraged by the Government’s attempts to mislead the public, and that it was simply not good enough by any measure.
“This is the most blatant example of a government that says one thing and does the complete opposite.
[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“When she was Transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian said that 100 per cent of timetabled trains were now air-conditioned. Fast forward three years, and we have documents showing in black and white that the government deliberately removed air-conditioned trains from the Campbelltown line and replaced them with non-air-conditioned ones,’’ Mr Warren said.[/social_quote]
“Last, year, on the Eastern Suburbs line, there were just nine trains without air-conditioning over the whole year.
“Yet here in Campbelltown, where people are travelling on trains for much longer and where the weather can be much more extreme, we are now scheduled to have more than 1,000 trains every year without air-conditioning – where’s the fairness in that?
“Gladys Berejiklian can spin it as much as she wants, but her spin makes no difference to commuters who are freezing in the mornings in winter and who will be sweltering in summer afternoons in a few months’ time.’’
Documents also obtained by Mr Warren earlier this year revealed that the burden of non-air-conditioned is not being shared fairly across the Sydney Trains network.
While train users in Campbelltown were forced to put up with non-air-conditioned trains every day, on the North Shore more than 95 percent of all trains in 2016 had air-conditioning and in the Eastern Suburbs there were just nine non-air-conditioned trains in the entire year.
“We’re not asking for the world here – all we expect is for Gladys Berejiklian to treat Campbelltown the same as any other part of Sydney, and for the government to be honest rather than deliberately misleading train commuters,” the Campbelltown MP said.
