A poxy little flat,

Kevin Rudd’s Electorate

Qld

10 December 2009

The Minister for Transport

An office that is nicer than mine

Ipswich (a city that is not nicer than mine)

Dear Rachel Nolan,

Transport Minister, I am a firm believer in the decentralisation of government, I believe in it whole heartedly. I see absolutely no reason why hoards of public servants should clog up the central BUSINESS districts in capital cities, taking up office space, car parking and precious breathing space.  After all, thanks to the grossly inadequate transport system you’ve let your ministry preside over, we can hardly expect them to catch busses and trains like the rest of us.  

But I’m by no means an extremist.  When I talk about decentralisation I mean considering if new jobs can be based in regions and moving offices to places like South Brisbane, Spring Hill, Fortitude Valley or Milton.  Convenient, central but no-CBD locations.  What would be extreme, is say moving people to Pine Rivers, Logan or Ipswich.  Now I know you’re from Ipswich.  And I know it’s an area going ahead and I can understand you want to give local businesses a boost. It is your electorate after all. But I guess only ever travelling to and from Brisbane in private transport, possibly even with a very convenient diver so you can come and go as you please, so you won’t have noticed that it’s actually a rather difficult place to get to.  There is one train line and one main road.  You may have also noticed that the road is in rather poor repair and you might want to chat to your mate the Minister for Main Roads about that.  No wait, the Premier has made your depts join together.  So you’re responsible for that too.

All of this brings me to my point, which is your absurd idea of basing the HQ of the new Queensland Rail Government owned corporation out at your home town of Ipswich.  Why on earth did you decide to base it out there Rachel?  I realise that I personally may not end up out there, but I may.  And I’m not so happy about it.  For a start, when I decide to jump ship back to the private sector, how can I interview for jobs without chucking sickies all the time?

Also, I’ve had family members work out there, and besides having to regularly deal with the less socially proficient, a distinct lack of low-fat food and an hour commute, they’ve also had to face the train journey.  I’m sure our Operational staff know how awful the company is in the Ipswich station and on the train back to civilisation Brisbane, but do you know?  I’m not sure how many of the current employees really want to put up with that.

And as if facing the social problems is not punishment enough, Rachel, the fact of the matter is not all of your GOC employees live in a location handy to Ipswich.  Some for example live on the Sunshine or Gold Coasts.  And whilst that’s a long commute to Brisbane, it’s half a working day to get from there to Ipswich and back.  Are you serious, you want to ask your valued employees to give up their work life balance to give a few businesses in your electorate a bit of a boost?

And the worst part about this Rachel, is that we don’t get a say.  I have just found this out this week.  Government owned corporations are not owned by the people of Queensland like our government departments.  In the legislation to create GoC’s the owners, are actually you, the premier and the treasurer.  We get no say what so ever!  So if you want to make employees go to whoop whoop, there’s nothing in place to stop that. And I noticed that little clause about the ‘owners’ not being liable for anything.

But despite the fact that you can dictate what you like to GoC’s, please, for the love of all that’s good, don’t move us out to Ipswich.

Regards,

AJ