Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The lives of many commuters in the Hawkesbury have been turned upside down by the New South Wales government's new train timetable. How's this for a plan: let's make an already long commute—about an hour and 20 minutes—even longer by adding small stations to it, let's make people get up 15 minutes earlier and let's make them wait an extra 15 minutes to get home.

Last week, at Richmond station, people were telling me the New South Wales Liberals have added as much as 40 minutes a day to their trip—that's three hours a week for those worst affected. Not everyone can change their start and finish times to suit the New South Wales trains. For working parents, it's an absolute nightmare. It was always tight, but now you can't drop off a child in time to catch the train you need to get to work by nine because childcare starts at 7.30 and the train leaves at 7.11. If you finish work at five, there's no longer a train that gets you back from the city in time to collect your children by 6.30.

These may seem like minor inconveniences to the state member, Dominic Perrottet, who has so far avoided meeting with local community advocates like Stuart Gale and Nathan Cox. Blue Mountains commuters in my electorate are also impacted, but they have a state member, Trish Doyle, who's taking up the fight. We may as well not have a state member for the Hawkesbury. But that doesn't mean that the Hawkesbury doesn't have serious state issues that need to be addressed.