Three days on from the spectacular shutdown of Sydney’s train system, significant questions have emerged about the role played by the transport minister, David Elliott.
While the New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, insisted on Wednesday that he still had confidence in Elliott, he rebuked his failure to tell members of the government of the looming crisis and for the decision to go to bed while the department scrambled to resolve industrial action taken by the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU).
“The minister will reflect on that and realise that all ministers are available 24/7,” Perrottet said. “That’s my expectation as premier.”
Substantial gaps and contradictions remain in the timeline leading up to the decision to close the network.
Transport for NSW has refused to answer questions about when the minister was briefed, and Elliott has at times offered contradictory statements about when he was informed.
The Guardian has attempted to summarise the key questions raised this week, and what we know about the situation to date.
When did David Elliott know about the shutdown?
The events leading up to the decision to close the network have become a matter of contention, and Elliott has offered different versions of what occurred.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Elliott said that he had gone to bed between 11pm and 12am on Sunday night, and had not been aware of the looming shutdown when he went to sleep.
However, at an earlier press conference on Monday he told reporters he had become aware of it “late last night”.
“That could have been very early this morning, it’s been a very long evening,” he said.
It was certainly after 11pm that he went to sleep, because at 11.10pm he posted a photo to his personal Facebook account of NSW police officers attending a Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras event.
Some officers in the photo were dressed as nuns, and in his post Elliott accused them of mocking and vilifying the Catholic church. “A sad day,” he wrote.
Elliott has not revealed when his last contact with the department was, but Labor has pointed to a leaked text message sent by his chief of staff to senior transport officials at 10.43pm stating he had “been briefed and is happy with our position” as proof the minister must have known more.
However, Elliott denied the message showed he was told about the shutdown, saying the text referred only to “significant interruptions” on the network and not a full shutdown.
While he admitted he had an “inkling” of what may occur, he defended not informing the premier or other members of the government about the shutdown “because I had no confirmation and I didn’t know exactly what action Transport for NSW would be taking”.
Who was responsible?
As Elliott slept, the transport department continued to scramble.
While Elliott has denied being aware of the shutdown, he has insisted he would have followed departmental advice that running the rail network under conditions imposed by the RTBU would be unsafe.
He has said the key decision-maker was the Sydney Trains chief executive, Matt Longland, who reportedly made the decision to close the network at 12.43am.
However, in its 1.50am statement Transport for NSW said it had been “clear at midnight” that it would not be possible to “safely operate train services”.
Crucially, under NSW law transport officials are required to inform the minister before any significant developments in relation to the transit network, and the government is now investigating whether that notification occurred.
But on Wednesday Elliott told parliament the department “considered it had discharged those obligations”.
“However, my office remained of the view until approximately 1.30am that there would be a significant disruption to services but not a total network shutdown,” he said.
“What is clear is that the communication between the department and my office was not sufficiently precise.”
In a statement, a Transport for NSW spokesperson said only that “there were a number of discussions that took place across last week and weekend with the minister’s office concerning the situation involving the ongoing industrial action”.
What led to the shutdown?
The RTBU and the government have been locked in an ongoing industrial dispute for months, and the union first flagged on Wednesday last week its intention to begin further action due to what it called “pushback” on its key demands around pay, privatisation and safety.
The union flagged a series of planned industrial actions including a ban on overtime, changes to master rosters and altered working conditions.
On Friday the government filed a dispute in the Fair Work Commission seeking to halt planned industrial action by the RTBU, citing “significant disruptions to customer journeys” and “economic harm” to the state’s economy.
The Transport for NSW secretary, Rob Sharp, said the government was seeking to avoid “difficulties the travelling public will face over the next two weeks”, but did not flag the potential for a network-wide shutdown.
The RTBU secretary, Alex Claassens, told the Guardian negotiations in the commission began on Saturday morning.
At the same time, Elliott was in Darwin in his capacity as veterans affairs minister. On Saturday he posted a photo to his personal Facebook account drinking a beer with the prime minister, Scott Morrison.
In the commission, both sides believed they had struck a deal by about 8pm on Saturday night. The union said it agreed to drop some of its planned actions, including a ban on overtime and to only work to a “master roster”.
At 8.33pm the union released a statement saying the agreement “provides Sydney Trains and NSW TrainLink the ability to safely run services from Monday”. However, it said it did “not mean an end to protected industrial action”.
The exact wording of the agreement reached on Saturday was not released, but both parties have offered differing versions of what followed.
What is known is that by Sunday evening, the government had decided to return to the commission.
Both Elliott and Perrottet accused the union of not appearing at Sunday’s negotiations, although Elliott himself was not here. Claassens was also absent, though lawyers and other union representatives were present.
The government accused the union of going back on the terms of the Saturday deal.
The industrial relations minister, Damien Tudehope, told the ABC that the RTBU had “walked away” from the deal.
But others have offered conflicting views. Elliott himself blamed a “misinterpretation” of what had been agreed to on Saturday evening, and the union denies it changed its mind.
The sticking point appeared to be a disagreement over which rosters would be used as the basis of the industrial action. In any case, the failure to reach a new agreement prompted a flurry of action within the transport department.
In the meantime, Elliott attended events commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Darwin bombing at about 11am eastern time and returned to Sydney later on Sunday afternoon.
His office did not respond to questions about when he landed.
Could anyone lose their job?
It remains unclear.
On Wednesday, Perrottet said he still had confidence in Elliott despite issuing a stinging rebuke to the minister’s decision to go to bed on Sunday night.
He also labelled the disruptions on the network as “pathetic” and said he should have been informed about the closure, while continuing to blame the union.
“Obviously what we saw on the train network on Monday was chaos,” he said.
But he also revealed that he has launched an investigation into the events leading up to the shutdown, and in particular whether the department adequately informed the minister of the decision.
That investigation may be able to answer outstanding questions about what the minister was told and when, although Perrottet has now instructed that briefs on major interruptions to the rail service must be made in writing, suggesting there may have been a series of verbal conversations in the lead up to the shutdown.
Elliott is known to have a frosty relationship with his transport secretary, Sharp, and the outcome of the investigation could prove crucial to a number of officials’ futures.
When will normal services resume?
On Tuesday, Elliott revealed the government had withdrawn its case against the RTBU in the fair work commission and said he had met with union officials in the hope of a speedier return to full services.
But by Wednesday afternoon the network was still running limited services, and the union suggested it was unlikely that it would end its industrial action until Monday.
