School-aged children will be allowed to travel free on public transport seven days a week if Labor wins the state election, the party’s new leader Michael Daley has promised.
Mr Daley made the announcement on Monday at Mortdale train station in the marginal Liberal seat of Oatley.
Transport Minister Andrew Constance immediately branded the promise Mr Daley’s “first major policy blunder”, claiming it would cost far more than forecast.
At present, free travel is available only to and from school, and not to all students.
Primary school pupils are eligible if their home is more than 2.3 kilometres away by walking, while secondary school students travel free if they live more than 2.9 kilometres from their school.
Mr Foley said Labor’s Fair Fares policy “recognises these restrictive and arbitrary conditions make it harder for families, or those participating in after school or weekend sport”.
“Free bus and train travel will also encourage children to use public transport more and ease congestion on Sydney’s already clogged roads,” he said.
Mr Daley said fares would be abolished for children under 16 years of age or while they remained at school.
Mr Daley said, based on official department forecasts, obtained under freedom of information laws, the cost of the commitment in 2019-20 would be $44 million.
Mr Constance said that figure was “simply not possible”.
“Our current program to give free Opal travel for school kids costs over half a billion dollars a year – and that covers around half of all school children,” he said.
"It provides free travel to half the students who live outside the radius [from school]," he said.
"What Michael Daley has announced today is not only a doubling of that – so well over $1 billion – but he's also said I'm going to provide free travel everywhere, all year round."
Mr Constance said Transport for NSW had advised that if all NSW school children were to receive free travel, the estimated cost would be:
- For a take up of between 90 - 100 per cent across NSW – approximately $1.4 billion (an increase of $513.7 million)
- Additional foregone revenue (estimated $30 million) arising from the removal of the School Term Bus Pass and the use of Child Opal cards in the Opal network by children that currently do not meet the eligibility.
“Overall it is estimated the cost of providing free travel for all 1.2 million NSW school students could cost the taxpayer up to $1.5 billion for school travel alone,” he said.
Mr Constance said Mr Daley was in the Labor cabinet in 2008 that scrapped the free school travel system in an attempt to fix their budget black hole – yet later had to backflip on that decision.
