Article: Private school students denied buses amid Easter holiday confusion

[Fares_Fair]

I see what you mean, I like comments 1 and 3 though !   
Take heart and smile in the face of clowns. 


Regards,
Fares_Fair.

[justanotheruser]

People mentioning the words "public" or "private" in regards to this matter are the ones who are WRONG.  

This issue is about the total incompetence of Translink to do what it was set-up to do - provide transit services to its contracted clients, which may include local authorities, private schools, sports clubs, social clubs, church groups, bushwalking groups, reunion parties or any other grouping of people - it has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the structural nature of the organisation concerned or when they may or may not take holidays. Translink is contracted by a broad range of parties - to provide transport services - that is what they should get on with doing.

School holidays occur often at different times - some schools always start and end holidays at different times to others.  Translink is a 365 day a year operation - Translink knows months in advance, EXACTLY when school clients will and will not require their services.

This issue is simply the result of some "flat-Earther" Translink boffin who should be shown the door - Qld needs better than these 1970's timetrap thinkers!  

while I agree that they should be more flexible the terms of the contract state they provide services based on state school terms. So by the independant schools choosing to have holidays earlier for the sake of one week was just heading for trouble.  Translink is like any other government organisation in that it is slow moving and inflexible. We all know this yet where is the massive outcry at stubborness of other government departments? Guess it just isn't popular enough to care about while this rates highly and will sell newspapers.

[jadep82]

Hi there, I used to work for TMR. A train member friend of mine showed me your club and we had a laugh about what can happen when a void of information exists. So here a bit of help for you wacky dudes...

TMR put the issue of school kids dates to the government last year. It was put forward by the departent because it was an all state policy and Translink and some of the bus companies had raised concerns about the number of schools running in Brissy while they weren't able to or funded for.

The Minister – and it might also been the premier or DP – told us to stick to the policy.

Now that was probably the former Minister. So we had a laugh when the current Minister panicked last week when it hit the media and she backflipped or flip flopped and came up with a solution.

Despite her talk IMHO nothing has changed. School services are not running – just the charters schools had already organised. Wonder what the Minister's boss thinks of all this.

In short bureaucrats did the right thing and pollies epic fail.

Anyway JT thanks for letting me put this into your little club. Thought you guys might get taken a bit more seriously if you had some background for your debate. Blog on...

Cheers Jade

[ozbob]

Welcome Jade, thanks for your comments.  I like 'wacky dude' .. LOL

Stick around.

Cheers
Bob

[somebody]

Translink is like any other government organisation in that it is slow moving and inflexible.

Don't know about that.  I work in the government and where I am we are a million times more flexible than some private sector places I have worked.

[colinw]

You could be describing the multi-national I work for there. The public service in this country doesn't even come close to us for mindless, rigid adherence to policies, and the overhead of running the business is staggering. Twice now we have introduced new reporting systems to 'streamline' things, only to have the old system keep running anyway because somebody depended on it for some data.  End result - double entry of timesheets (with manual reconciliation between them), and now double reporting of expenses (with manual reconciliation of an electronic submission and a paper submission, tied together by printing a barcode).

By the way, LOL @ 'wacky dudes'.  I like it!

@jade - please enlighten us as to any areas where this group is off the mark.  Information void would neatly describe the conditions we work in much of the time.

If wanting public transport that is frequent, affordable, and people will actually use makes me "wacky", then "wacky" I am.  Just because Queensland seems to find the concept almost incomprehensible doesn't mean it can't be done.

[#Metro]

Public servants carry out the orders of their political masters. If the policy was bad, then that shows up downstream.
Let them politicians be roasted by The Courier Mail for their decisions I say... too many bad decisions and they will
be booted out of office. That's how government and democracy works.

[justanotheruser]

Translink is like any other government organisation in that it is slow moving and inflexible.

Don't know about that.  I work in the government and where I am we are a million times more flexible than some private sector places I have worked.

The most flexible government department my wife or I have worked for was the one where my wife got sacked for getting sick (she was a contractor with two months to go). Then they hired a contractor for 12 months to complete the two months of work my wife had to do. The most rigid place I worked was also a private company but otherwise all other private employers have ben very flexible.

[Otto]

Just for a different take....

My sons Private School P-12 ( Lutheran ) is observing school holidays this week whilst Redeemer P-12 ( also Lutheran ) is back from hols this week...... Go Figure !!!

[justanotheruser]

Just for a different take....

My sons Private School P-12 ( Lutheran ) is observing school holidays this week whilst Redeemer P-12 ( also Lutheran ) is back from hols this week...... Go Figure !!!

thats lutherans for you!  Because the lutheran schools tend to be attached to a lutheran church they make up their own minds about when to do things.

[AnonymouslyBad]

while I agree that they should be more flexible the terms of the contract state they provide services based on state school terms. So by the independant schools choosing to have holidays earlier for the sake of one week was just heading for trouble.  Translink is like any other government organisation in that it is slow moving and inflexible. We all know this yet where is the massive outcry at stubborness of other government departments? Guess it just isn't popular enough to care about while this rates highly and will sell newspapers.

The thing is that independent schools have different holidays to the state schools all the time. I don't know of a single private school that keeps to the exact same calendar as the state system all year. But until now the buses still ran.

So this is the first time TL has essentially told schools "too bad, we'll run the buses when you're on holidays because that's what's technically written down".

It's all water under the bridge now, I guess, but I just can't understand how TL (or the Minister of the time) ever saw any outcome other than backlash.