Article: Pay rise for Metro: $180m more than Connex

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From the Melbourne Age click here!

Pay rise for Metro: $180m more than Connex

Pay rise for Metro: $180m more than Connex
CLAY LUCAS
May 5, 2010

MELBOURNE'S new train operator, Metro, will receive a massive jump in payments over its predecessor, Connex, the state budget reveals.

Metro will receive $821 million from the state government in the next financial year, an increase of $180 million on what Connex got in its final full financial year.

Despite the increase, Metro is struggling financially as it tries to come to grips with running Melbourne's rail system. So far it has failed to meet punctuality targets and is running trains later than Connex did when it left last year.

Public Transport Minister Martin Pakula said via his spokesman that the funding difference between Metro and Connex was due to a jump in rail maintenance, more front-line staff and money for running more train services. There were also one-off costs such as $25 million to rebrand the trains.

But opposition transport spokesman Terry Mulder said the budget showed Premier John Brumby had cut a bad deal with Metro, as he had as treasurer when he granted hundreds of millions extra in funding to Connex in 2004. ''This is the second time John Brumby has pumped additional money into a rail operator, claimed he had done a great deal, and it has turned out to be a dud,'' he said.

The budget predicts that the $1.35 billion myki card, now in operation on trains, will not start working on trams and buses until at least September. The budget also shows that OneLink Transit Systems, the operator of Metcard, is likely to get a performance bonus because the existing ticket system is working so well.

Mr Pakula yesterday announced an additional 20 railway stations that will be restaffed from first train to the last service. They are: Seaford, Parkdale, Hallam, Prahran, Holmesglen, Upwey, Ormond, Westall, Chelsea, Windsor, Newmarket, Moonee Ponds, Hoppers Crossing, Carnegie, North Brighton, Lalor, Ginifer, East Richmond, Northcote and Highett.

Another 22 stations, revealed last month by The Age, are to be restaffed part-time from September.

The secretary of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union, Trevor Dobbyn, said the staffing or partially staffing of another 42 railway stations around Melbourne was a great step forward.

But he said 100 more ticket inspectors were still needed to deal with crime and safety around train stations.

More than $500 million was allocated to begin building the Regional Rail Link, 50 kilometres of track from Werribee to Southern Cross Station, which the government says will make V/Line trains more reliable.