Council elections: your ticket to fixing the buses
During a holiday in Samoa years ago I ordered a fish meal at a restaurant. Would I like potatoes or rice with it? I chose potatoes. A few minutes later the smiling waiter came out. ‘‘Sir, I have very good news. We have lots of rice.’’
I said I’d ordered potatoes. ‘‘Ah,’’ he sighed, ‘‘we’ve run out of potatoes, but we have lots of rice.’’ I agreed to rice, and the meal was delicious, though I am suspicious that the waiter is now working for the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC).
‘‘We’ve been making changes to bring more certainty to the bus network,’’ chirped a recent GWRC missive. We all love certainty, especially when it comes to buses. But on further investigation I realised GWRC was simply cutting even more services because of the driver shortage.
The routes were all Tranzurban services – seemingly the preferred company of GWRC and other local politicians – which also pays, compared to NZ Bus, effectively lower wages with no penal rates and an anti-union management.
‘‘The past few weeks have been an uncertain time for customers across the network not being sure if their trip will happen or not,’’ announced transport chair Barbara Donaldson in one of the understatements of the year. ‘‘This was not acceptable so we have worked with Tranzurban to identify routes across the city that could be temporarily suspended or replaced with the least amount of impact on customers.’’
Donaldson’s solution seems to be to cancel routes until Tranzurban has enough drivers. Using that logic, I look forward to our council solving the current library problems by issuing books only to people whose surname begins with D.
If Donaldson, who famously refused to engage with ‘‘rude’’ citizens at bustastrophe meetings, is re-elected and becomes chair of the next GWRC, I fear I will have to give up satire, the same way writer Kurt Vonnegut did after Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.
So why are we still short of bus drivers? Isn’t there a massive Metlink-supported recruitment campaign going on? Didn’t Nigel from Ngaio, Kura from Khandallah and Hairy Maclary from Barbara
Donaldson’s dairy all tell us what a great job driving a bus was?
According to GWRC public transport general manager Greg Pollock, a recent recruitment drive attracted a ‘‘huge’’ response, but most applicants did not have a full driver’s licence or had drinkdriving convictions. That’s the trouble with paying peanuts – you get monkeys with drink-driving convictions. But don’t think that paying drivers more is a simple solution to the bustastrophe. Even though people on both the Left and Right have been telling me that would work, GWRC disagrees. It seems the council exists in a different universe.
That’s why you can wait 13 minutes at a bus hub that, according to the timetable, has a bus every 10 minutes. What other organisation can defy the space-time continuum as well as the GWRC?
In a toilet at Victoria University’s business school is a Tranzurban poster busting the ‘‘myth’’ that bus driving is not a career. ‘‘Join us – we’re hiring,’’ it says to business students doing their business. A student has scribbled – ‘‘Driving isn’t a career – Tranzurban. $50,000 student loan to drive a bus and an induced mental illness from society telling me I should have a degree.’’
Those damn students seem more interested in splitting the atom than splitting their shifts. So, what can be done? If GWRC won’t pay drivers more, then GWRC must change.
Most GWRC candidates will tell you fixing the buses is a top priority. Sam ‘‘man with a plan’’ Somers has released detailed policy, including free public transport at weekends. He and fellow candidate John Klaphake are holding ‘‘bus shelter meetings’’. Thomas Nash says that ‘‘until bus drivers are paid around the same rate as taxi and truck drivers, and there’s a region-wide contract for bus driver wages and conditions that all bus companies are required to sign up to, we won’t solve the Wellington bus fiasco.’’
Phil Quin’s campaign slogan is #fixthebuses. Tony Jansen says fixing the ‘‘ongoing bustastrophe’’ is his first priority. Roger Blakeley wants to ‘‘resolve outstanding problems’’ from last year’s July bus review. Sitting councillor Daran Ponter, who has faced the public in Donaldson’s absence, supports a ‘‘fairer wage’’ for drivers.
Victoria Rhodes-Carlin, one of only five women standing in the Wellington/Po¯ neke constituency, says ‘‘until we have better quality pay for bus drivers . . . cuts like this will likely continue’’. Helene Ritchie wants Wellington to ‘‘return to a reliable bus service’’, while David Lee wants to ‘‘fix the bus system’’ and supports the creation of a public transport authority like Auckland’s.
But don’t take my word for it – go to meetings, search on the web, and ask candidates embarrassing questions. It’s called democracy, and it’s for everyone, not just people whose last name begins with D.
If Barbara Donaldson is re-elected ... I fear I will have to give up satire, the same way writer Kurt Vonnegut did after Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.