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The state government plans to sack thousands from RailCorp / Pic: Stephen Cooper Source: The Daily Telegraph

Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian is today expected to announce the axing of 20 per cent of the rail system’s middle management – or 750 jobs – in the first tranche of a RailCorp reform process.

The axings are the precursor to much bigger cuts, with a recent Booz consultancy report into RailCorp recommending 3000 to 4500 of RailCorp’s 15,000 jobs be slashed.

The action could result in the first rail strikes in years.

Under the changes RailCorp will be broken up into two organisations – Sydney Trains and NSW Trains – and 750 bureaucrats will be given voluntary redundancies.

It is understood the minister this morning called together staff and unions to brief them on the government’s plans.

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Further cuts are expected when the government negotiates an enterprise bargaining agreement it has with the unions which the former Labor government put in place until 2014. Under that agreement, the minister is not permitted to summarily sack staff.

The changes come after the government found RailCorp had four times as many senior bureaucrats for the size of its workforce than the former RTA and 20 times the Department of Education.

The government is also putting RailCorp cleaning services under new management and will tell the unions to lift their game unless they want the cleaning services privatised.

Under existing rules, cleaning staff can only remove graffiti from some sections inside trains – the entrance way, floors and walls – but are prevented from cleaning the main areas of the carriage.

That cleaning must be carried out separately by maintenance workers. The rules mean ceilings, doors and floors of most of our trains can have ugly graffiti on them for up to 58 days at a time.

“We are expecting a brawl with rail unions,” a senior government source said.

“We need decisive action because RailCorp in its current form is financially unsustainable. It costs $10 million a day to run, with costs rising three times as fast as the number of passenger journeys.”

Reformers including former rail boss Vince Graham have for two decades been urging an axe be taken to RailCorp to break the grip of unions.

Under the changes, two new specialist organisations will be formed to focus on the specific needs of Sydney and intercity/country customers.

Sydney Trains will serve Sydney customers. NSW Trains will serve intercity and regional customers who travel longer distances and need comfortable services with on-board facilities. The changes to the new organisations will take 12 to 18 months to implement.

From July 1, responsibility for construction and major projects will be transferred to Transport for NSW. Also from July 1, a new customer services division will be established. A specialist unit will be formed to attack graffiti and rubbish on trains and stations.

Heatwaves, bushfires predicted to hammer NSW

Updated May 14, 2012 14:08:28

The Climate Commission has released a report predicting record heatwaves, bushfires and rising sea levels in New South Wales because of climate change.

The report says the temperature in Sydney tops 35 degrees on just three days a year, but based on climate modelling, it will be 14 days per year by the end of the century.

Federal Climate Commissioner Professor Lesley Hughes says western Sydney is getting disproportionally hotter and drier than the rest of Sydney.

“If we compare western Sydney with the rest of Sydney, the number of hot days in western Sydney used to be three times as many as eastern Sydney, and now it’s four times,” she said.

“So what we are seeing is not only rising temperatures but some parts of the country are getting disproportionally hotter.”

The report, part of the Commission’s series titled “The Critical Decade”, predicts by century’s end that sea-levels will rise by 1.1 metres, putting more than 40,000 New South Wales homes and 250 kilometres of highway at risk.

Particularly vulnerable areas include Lake Macquarie and Wollongong.

Professor Hughes says there will also be more bushfires.

“The number of very high fire danger days could increase by over 20 per cent by 2020, by up to 70 per cent by 2070,” she said.

Chief climate commissioner Tim Flannery says some of the negative impacts of warmer weather in Sydney’s west are not immediately obvious.

“What happens when we get these very, very hot days is that elderly people and the very young particularly are vulnerable and people get a little bit confused because they’re heat stressed,” he said.

“People get angry as well, particularly if you’re sitting in a traffic jam and it’s stinking hot outside.”

But Professor Hughes does say New South Wales is well-placed to capitalise on the trend towards clean energy, citing the state’s uptake of solar panels.

A climate scientist with the University of Newcastle, Stewart Franks, has questioned the tone of the report, saying it tends towards scare mongering.

“The whole thrust of the report is what the climate’s going to be doing into the future,” he said.

“Now unfortunately, we know that the climate models that are used to actually do that job actually don’t represent key modes of climate which are very important.

“I’m thinking specifically things like El Nino and La Nina.”

Professor Tim Flannery says the report is not political.

“The job is to provide the best quality information we can from a scientific perspective,” he said.

Greens Senator Christine Milne says the climate science is clear.

“Every report that comes out anywhere in the world has shown that climate change is accelerating,” she says.

“It is time for those people who deny the science of climate change to just get out of the way.”

Federal Opposition climate change spokesman Greg Hunt says he respects the science.

“There’s a significant issue here, although many of the claims attributed to it have not always been entirely accurate,” he said.

“The dams were predicted to be empty rather than full by now, so everybody needs a little bit of humility.”

Topics:climate-change, environment, sydney-2000, nsw, australia, wollongong-2500

First posted May 14, 2012 07:59:20

An Analysis of Climate Change throughout the Ages

Posted: 13 May 2012 06:32 AM PDT

• Meteorite discovery spurs hunt for more pieces
• Mojave Desert tests prepare for NASA Mars roving
• NASA’s new carbon-counting instrument leaves the nest

Meteorite discovery spurs hunt for more pieces Posted: 12 May 2012 07:10 AM PDT Meteorite fragments were recently scattered around Sutter’s Mill in California, the same region where the first nugget of gold was found that sparked the Gold Rush in 1848. Scientists believe the meteorites may hold answers to unsolved mysteries about our solar system and the origins of molecules necessary for life. When the Gold Rush began, people headed to California seeking their fortune. Now, with this meteorite hunt, people once again have flocked to this area to search for scientific treasures.

Mojave Desert tests prepare for NASA Mars roving Posted: 12 May 2012 07:01 AM PDT Team members of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission took a test rover to Dumont Dunes in California’s Mojave Desert this week to improve knowledge of the best way to operate a similar rover, Curiosity, currently flying to Mars for an August landing.

NASA’s new carbon-counting instrument leaves the nest Posted: 12 May 2012 07:00 AM PDT Its construction now complete, the science instrument that is the heart of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) spacecraft — NASA’s first mission dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide — has left its nest at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and has arrived at its integration and test site in Gilbert, Ariz.