Editorial
Premier, stop playing games with western Sydney residents on Metro
Political operatives are well versed in the art of “expectations management”. If voters are primed for disappointment, they’ll be happier when the government delivers moderately bad news.
In NSW, this exercise has been underway ever since Labor won office in March, with grim warnings about debt, the horror state of the financial books and the brutal budget to come in September.
Among the various stakeholders of Sydney’s planned Metro West – lobbyists, developers, planners, mayors, and the like – most believe the past week has been another episode in preparing the public for delays. Very few think the train line can or will be axed.
Metro West hangs by a thread as Minns flags project review
The Herald believes that any delay to the project would be a disaster. But so is the uncertainty hanging over it, which now threatens to linger into next year.
On Thursday, Treasurer Daniel Mookhey noted the review the government commissioned into Sydney Metro – led by former federal bureaucrat Mike Mrdak – isn’t due until October, after the budget. There would be a half-year review in December and another budget next year, Mookhey pointed out.
That is far too long for a question mark to hover over this vital, city-building piece of infrastructure, which is not just a key transportation solution for western Sydney but a crucial backbone for the government’s housing policy.
As the Herald reported on Wednesday, $8 billion has already been spent on this project and cancelling it would incur billions more in compensation. The enormous boring machines are already worming their way underneath Rozelle.
If Metro West can’t and won’t be scrapped, Premier Chris Minns should say so now. Likewise, if modifications are needed to add more housing to the project, that should be made clear.
Granted, the government is waiting for an independent review. But as Transport Minister Jo Haylen noted when asked about the Parramatta light rail project, the point of these reviews is to align spending with the government’s “strategic priorities”.
If Minns knows what his strategic priorities are, and how Metro West needs to change to enable them, let’s have that discussion now rather than hiding behind the cloak of a review. It would be much better than letting voters sweat while they wonder whether they’re going to get the metro line at all.
People ensconced in the daily battleground of politics love to discuss optics, tactics and messaging – including the crafting of public expectations – and many believe themselves great barometers of what the public is thinking.
But usually, it’s a lot less complicated than the political elites contrive. Voters just want the train that was promised, and if there needs to be changes, they’d like them explained.
Running options up the flag pole to gauge the public’s reaction (if that is what’s going on here) might be a clever bit of political theatre, but it leaves Sydneysiders in the lurch and investors wondering whether they should take their money elsewhere.
NSW voters may have sufficiently forgiven Labor for its infrastructure shenanigans of the 2000s to return the party to office, but people haven’t wiped that history from their memories entirely. The risk Minns runs is that the government’s oscillation – particularly his public flirtation with cancelling the project entirely – only serves to remind people of Labor’s old ways.
Minns says the cost blowouts of the metro – which were known well before the election – justify the review he commissioned upon taking office. Fair enough – and ensuring this enormous expenditure delivers the best return for Sydney is paramount.
But letting doubt fester for months would be unsettling for voters, especially those in western Sydney who are sadly too used to the infrastructure carrot being dangled – and then yanked away.
Bevan Shields sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.