Transport for NSW warns of heightened risk of ‘failures' on rail network
During a press conference about the network failure on May 21, Minns said he 'stays up at night worrying about' a comparable infrastructure failure bringing down the city's rail network again, the consequence of delays to Sydney Train's maintenance program.
On May 30, after months of negotiations in the Fair Work Commission, the state government reached an agreement with the rail unions. A proposed enterprise agreement would win 13,000 employees a 12 per cent wage increase over three years, plus back pay. The Electrical Trades Union has sought to block the vote because of concern over the agreement's categorisation of maintenance and engineering employees.
A Transport for NSW spokesman said there was 'no outstanding safety-critical preventative work'. He said the maintenance backlog had decreased by 92 per cent to 53 outstanding work orders as of June 9.
'It is no secret that industrial action and severe weather have had detrimental impacts on reliability in recent years,' he said.
'A lot of work has already gone into improving Sydney Trains' reliability. The Rail Repair Plan, completed in June 2024, resulted in passengers spending 35 per cent less time in train delays caused by infrastructure failures.'
RTBU NSW secretary Toby Warnes called on Transport for NSW to take responsibility for the 'decades of neglect of our transport system', saying Labor and Coalition governments over the preceding decade had not 'prioritised commuters or the network'.
'The fact is, none of the recent issues have been caused by protected industrial action,' said Warnes.
'Transport for NSW's tangential blame of protected industrial action for the Strathfield incident was directly and immediately debunked by the premier. These continued claims are simply untrue.'
Opposition transport spokeswoman Natalie Ward said: 'While the government has found its scapegoat, the reality is commuters need performance over promises for our rail network.
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