NSW Election 2019

It’s an election year in NSW and now less than two months out, we are starting to see robust policy announcements, discussions and debates from all sides of politics. Both of the major parties have a platform for transport that they are running on for this state election, ranging from changes to ticketing to new train lines. This post will serve as an outline to the already announced policies from both parties, whilst future posts will provide commentary surrounding policies leading up to the election.

Liberal Policies

• Continue with construction of Sydney Metro City and Southwest
• Deliver 17 new Waratah Series 2 trains
• Continue with planning for Sydney Metro West
• A new North South Rail linking communities to the new Western Sydney airport and new jobs
• Expansion of Transport Access Program
• New Opalpay carparks at major stations

Labor Policies

• Free public transport for all school students
• A new train timetable, with reduced travel times for Western Sydney
• Reduce station access fee to $5 at both Domestic and International stations, with $0 fee for registered airport workers
• $8 billion to fast track the construction of Sydney Metro West from the CBD to Westmead
• Continue with construction of Sydney Metro City (and Southwest if contracts can’t be broken)
• $3 billion for improvements to the rail network
• Feasibility studies for extension of South West Rail Link to Western Sydney Airport.
• Expanded bus services including Sutherland to Airport
• Refund for train services that are excessively delayed for avoidable reasons
• No more privatisation of transport services and buy back of selected privatised transport services
• Expansion of Transport Access Program
• New Opalpay carparks at major stations

Both parties have promised billions of dollars worth of new infrastructure all well as investment in other programs. Labor has more promises on paper, but this is because a large part of the Liberal transport platform is based on continuing their pre-existing programs which they claim are sufficient and they aren’t included in this list of policy announcements. On the other hand Labor is presenting a fresh new platform with a large number of small but significant policies.

There will also be a federal election this year. Whilst the content we normally post surrounds issues that are state based, sometimes federal governments intervene in transport policy particularly with funding for policies announced by the state branch of that is party. We will do a detailed post after the end of the NSW state campaign.