Save our Rail president Joan Dawson has welcomed the resignation of Mike Baird, saying the former premier has left a “disgraceful” legacy in Newcastle and his decision to truncate the heavy rail line had “decapitated” the city.
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There were bitter divisions within the community over the fate of the line for much of Mr Baird’s tenure in the top job, until the state government passed legislation allowing it to pull up the tracks in October 2015.
“Mike Baird came in with charisma and charm but he has certainly caused a lot of dismay and distress in this state with the decisions that have been adhered to,” Ms Dawson said.
“Newcastle has been virtually cut off in terms of transport and there’s already chaos in every direction because of that decision.
“This project has meant the second largest city in NSW has been decapitated.”
In his resignation speech, Mr Baird said his decision to step down from the job would allow a “refresh” of his government and revealed it had come at a deep “personal cost” as family members struggled with health issues.
However Ms Dawson was skeptical about the reasons proffered.
“I can’t understand why a young person like Mr Baird, in the prime of his career, would take this dive,” she said.
“Unless there is some other factor. I’m not saying that Mr Baird is corrupt, but there must be some other factor.”
Ms Dawson said Mr Baird had run the government like a “dictator” by trying to force through unpopular decisions like the greyhound racing ban and the closure of the rail line.
She said it had been a government that appeared to be beholden to developers and vested interests, after ICAC proceedings resulted in the resignations of Hunter Liberal MPs Tim Owen and Andrew Cornwell and forced Garry Edwards and Craig Baumann to stand aside.
“The sale of the Port of Newcastle put the state government into a situation of affluence where they were running around parking lumps of money onto all sorts of unsuitable projects and it has been to the detriment of this city and the whole of the Hunter Valley,” she said.
She dismissed Mr Baird’s supporters, who have linked the high-rise construction boom in the inner city to the government’s revitalisation efforts and the removal of the heavy rail.
“That’s nonsense,” she said.
“They’ve bought a piece of grass for kiddies to romp on. Newcastle already had wonderful attributes and a good climate and we’d been saying for years that Newcastle would go ahead because of those factors.
“How illogical is it to say that cutting off your transport would improve your prospects of advancement?”
Ms Dawson did not nominate a successor for Mr Baird but said Adrian Piccoli had done a “wonderful job” as education minister.
She accused treasurer Gladys Berejiklian of “twisting and turning like a candle in the wind” on the rail issue.
“If Gladys came in as premier I don’t know that she’d be able to change things. If there’s someone in there with any sort of backbone and decency, some of the decisions that Mr Baird has blindly made and stuck with could be reversed.
“It could be a better year, but it could be a worse year if we get someone more ruthless. I don’t know.”
