McKay outed on rail
I put together this media release after receiving word from several sources who were at the Property Council lunch where Jodi McKay, Sydney-appointed Labor candidate was supposedly going to release a clear policy on the Newcastle rail line.
The sources (one was in favour of cutting the rail!) all said Jodi supported cutting the rail. How many others there thought this is what she said?
Perhaps we should all read ex-speechwriter for Paul Keating, Don Watson's Weasel Words. He's got a good quote in there from George Orwell: 'Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful.'
A reliable journo who was there said Jodi clearly contradicted herself, saying that she supported Iemma's decision on the rail line, then 5 minutes later said that it divided the new (Honeysuckle) and old (Hunter St) Newcastle and that Sydney would not put up with that, so nor should we.
So does Jodi McKay really support the retention of the heavy rail services through to Newcastle Station (in its existing location)? I'm very happy to put a clear statement from Jodi up on this blog site!
I'm afraid the chocolate frog is still up for grabs!
It’s now been 66 Jodi policy-free days.
Newcastle Greens
17 November 2006
McKay outed on first campaign policy statement to cut Newcastle rail service!
In the first real policy statement of her election campaign, Sydney’s Labor candidate for Newcastle, Jodi McKay, yesterday told the Property Council that she favoured cutting Newcastle’s heavy rail service.
The Greens candidate for Newcastle, Councillor Michael Osborne, said that people who attended the Property Council event had verified Ms McKay’s statement on the issue.
“Ms McKay has now been outed on the rail line, and it’s time for her to fess up to the ordinary people of Newcastle that she’s siding with the developers who want to cut our present rail service,” Cr Osborne said.
“She can’t keep something as important as this between her and the developers, and she can’t expect Newcastle voters to be gullible enough to believe that it’s just a coincidence that her views on the rail line coincide exactly with the views of the Sydney-based Labor powerbrokers who engineered her preselection.
“This confirms fears that many in the local community have held about Ms McKay’s position on the rail line, and is further testimony to how much she is captive to Sydney’s right-wing Labor powerbrokers and developers, who have been eying off the rail land since the 1980s.
“It’s highly significant that Ms McKay chose to make her first significant policy statement at an event organised by the body representing property developers, and on a day that stimulated media speculation about moves by the NSW Labor government to hand the Newcastle rail corridor over to private developers for light rail and building development.
“It raises questions about how much Ms McKay has been told by her Sydney right-wing backers that she is not telling the Newcastle community about what is going on between developers and key Sydney Labor powerbrokers.
“It’s clear that Mr Iemma and Mr Costa – who have wanted to cut our rail line for years – have put Ms McKay here to do the job that the present member for Newcastle, Bryce Gaudry, refused to do.
“Ms McKay may be in touch with her Sydney Labor backers and local developers, but she is badly out of touch with grassroots members of the Newcastle community – including many local Labor party members and voters - who have fought for many years to save our heavy rail service.
Cr Osborne said that now that Ms McKay position on the rail issue was publicly known, it would become one of the major local election issues, and another key point of distinction between the candidates for the state seat of Newcastle.
“The Independent candidate for Newcastle, Lord Mayor John Tate is a well known ally of Mr Costa’s push to cut the rail line, and the Liberal candidate, Martin Babakhan belongs to the party that first proposed to cut the line (under the Greiner government).
“As The Greens candidate, I am the only candidate who can honestly claim to belong to a party that has consistently campaigned to save the present heavy rail service to Newcastle, and to have consistently supported local grassroots community organisations who have fought the push to cut the rail line by successive developer-supported State governments.
“Ms McKay is trying to hide behind the “Light Rail gambit” – a tired and cynical attempt to greenwash the proposal to cut the rail line by arguing that it can be replaced by light rail.
“Again, Ms McKay and her Sydney Labor backers are trying to play the people of Newcastle for fools.
“The Greens and local community groups have said for years that cutting the city’s heavy rail service to simply replace it with light rail adds nothing to Newcastle’s public transport infrastructure, and wastes valuable public funds that should be spent improving our neglected public transport system.
“The Greens strongly support light rail, but not where it simply replaces existing public transport infrastructure to satisfy developers.”
