How to Vote: Ripoff Style

Well it's state election day 2015. After an ultra short campaign we're ready to give our voting recommendations . At the start of the campaign we set out to compare the published policies of the three parties LNP, ALP, and Greens, but that didn't happen so you wont be getting a point by point comparison, just our honest assessment.

 

Vote 1 Greens. 

The Greens took the opportunity to do some blue sky thinking and came up with a policy and plans that we could really get behind. Who knows if they would stand up to budget scrutiny but the Greens committed to extending concessions to the unemployed and removing the absurd bureaucracy around the TTCC card and that's an important first step. The only thing the Greens plan was missing was a commitment to improving community consultation.

Vote 2 Labor. 

Mid campaign we were promised a public transport policy statement from Labor's transport spokesperson Jackie Trad. The policy never appeared. A week and a half later Jackie indicated in a candidates debate that the Labor party supported the extending of concessions to unemployed (a big policy shift), removing TTCC bureaucracy, and starting a fare reform process. Though Jackie's statements about finally bringing Queensland into line with the rest of the country on unemployed concessions were welcome it was too little too late. By not releasing public transport policy statements at any stage Labor withheld the trigger for discussion and debate in the media. While Labor were withholding their public transport policy they were also campaigning on anti-privatisation and their Cross River Rail infrastructure plans. Given that we're experiencing a protracted affordability crisis which started with the previous Labor government we find their unwillingness to be upfront extremely disappointing.

Vote 3 LNP. 

The LNP have brought nothing new to the table during this election campaign. No new ideas or plans, no sweeteners. A vote for the LNP is a vote for the 5 bilion dollar Bus and Train Tunnel and more of the same brutal approach that has left train stations understaffed and a massive number of Senior Network Officers deployed. If voted in the LNP will continue with their aweful community engagement, reduction of services, poor planning, and continued systemic failure. Public transport users will continue to suffer, especially those in areas outside metropolitan Brisbane.

Note: Our voting recommendations were written with input from many of our team members some of whom have affiliations with political parties. Some of our team have just finished high school, some are university students, and others have experience in community work. Our sense of fairness and honesty unites us.

Fairness, Honesty, Talk to us!

It's the night before the election, Jan 30th, 2015 and we're disappointed that the ALP and LNP left the affordability crisis in South East Queensland off their campaign agendas. Promised policy statements never appeared and no debate could take place. 

The Translink Ripoff team have been bouncing around some ideas and below you can read the values we want politicians to take on board. We will assess what policy and commitments have been put forward against our values and give you an honest assessment of each party in our next post. 

Fairness

 

High fares, tiny and complex zones, disappearing services, and cumbersome bureaucracy (TTCC) make us all struggle, but the people who struggle the most are the unemployed and under employed, many of whom can’t afford transport, or are forced to severely limit their transport use. Fairness can only happen when politicians make plans with battlers in mind.

 

 

Honesty

The people of SEQ know that their public transport system is woefully inadequate and far too expensive.  And yet Translink and State Government’s selective and strategic use of statistics and design of survey parameters suggests the opposite.  No amount of spin or advertising is going to fix the system. We need politicians to be upfront and face reality. Politicians need to do what needs to be done to get to a decent system, and that starts with honesty.

 

Talk to us!

 

Public transport needs to deliver the services that people want. The best way to find out what the people want is to talk to us. Ask us about the services we want delivered, let us talk to the planners, and listen for our answers.

It's Election Time: Compare the State Capitals

New government, same Translink! So we're ramping up our notching up service!

The LNP is in! They made the least promises and who knows if they're going to keep any of them. Translink is still shabby and unaffordable. So we're ramping up our notching up service. It's the same idea that we launched our campaign with back in January, except we've got some new strategies to notch up in bulk!   

Here's how our notching up service works. 

• I provide the service to people who work in or around the Brisbane CBD on Monday mornings so as to optimize the benefits for the rest of the week. Ideally you will have notched one journey getting to work. 
• You need to provide me with an unregistered go-card as this protects both of us from infringement of Translink rules as anyone can be the bearer of an unregistered go-card.
• I charge $1 per notch and the go-card needs to be charged with enough credit to cover the cost of 9-1 zone (off peak) journeys $21.96 or the cost of 10-1 zone (off peak) journeys $24.40 if you have not notched up a journey that morning.
• Text me your workplace address or a meeting place, I'll meet you around 9am, grab your go-card and $9 or $10, and return it before you finish work. 

The cost of each journey will be $3.44 which is a significant saving! I am eager to get as many go-cards as I can as I have a new strategy that will allow me to notch up go-cards in bulk. This may interest your co-workers?

Michael Swifte

0414 215 288