Penny Sharpe's blog

The NSW Opposition has today called on Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian to apologise to commuters and hold a fare free day to make up for a month of horror delays on our trains.

In the past month, commuters have been hit with:

Media Release | Friday, 14 December 2012

THE HUNTER DESERVES BETTER - FIRST RATE CITY TO GET A SECOND CLASS TRANSPORT SYSTEM

It makes no sense to spend hundreds of millions of dollars ripping public transport infrastructure out of the Hunter - at a time when every other growing city in the world is doing the exact opposite.

"It makes no sense to rip important public transport infrastructure out of the Hunter," Opposition Leader John Robertson said today.

"At the same time the O'Farrell Government is building new heavy and light rail in Sydney, they are ripping it out of the Hunter at great cost.

"This announcement will give a first rate city a second class transport system.

"The NSW Labor Opposition believes the rail line should be kept as part of the Newcastle CBD revitalisation, not pulled apart.

Today I was asked by a student about how I use twitter as a Member of Parliament. I thought you might be interested in my responses. I am also intersted in adding to the list to try and stop twitter atrocities commited every day by elected representatives. Let me know what you think.

1. As a regular Twitter user yourself, what are some of best and worst ways you have seen other politicians use Twitter?

The best politicians who use twitter: 

- do their own tweets,

- use it a tool for engagement, dialogue & information sharing/seeking,  

- support others people's campaigns and use twitter to help run their own campaigns

I was recently asked to write a contribution to the Better Letters website about the importance of correspondence and how governments could improve the interaction between voters and their elected representatives.

This follows on from a previous blog I wrote about email campaigns and how to lobby MP's and not be ignored.

If you have any thoughts on the good, the bad and the ugly of correspondence with your elected representatives - let me know.

Better Letters Matter for Our Democracy

When someone writes to an elected representative a fundamental, but often overlooked cog of our democracy turns.

WHERE'S GLADYS?

Barry O'Farrell's Minister for Transport, Gladys Berejiklian should come out of hiding and apologise to commuters for yesterday's disastrous signalling failure which left thousands of passengers stranded on platforms.  

Shadow Minister for Transport, Penny Sharpe said yesterday was the third time in 12 months that signalling problems have brought the CityRail network to a grinding halt and the sixth major train incident since Barry O'Farrell became Premier.

"Yesterday thousands of commuters struggled to get home as the train network came to a standstill off the back of a major signalling failure in the Inner West," said Ms Sharpe.