Minister told to end holiday to fix myki

Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu yesterday called for Transport Minister Lynne Kosky to come back from leave and face the music on troubled electronic ticketing system myki.

A myki reader
(Credit: Transport
Ticketing Authority)

The government had set a date for the Melbourne roll-out of the system as "before the end of the year". This was met, but only for trains, not trams or buses. According to Baillieu, even that was put into action too soon.

Baillieu said the roll-out had been made a farce by problems such as the myki website (where people can request registered cards) going down, around 1700 people who had sent for personalised cards received faulty ones, and 50 per cent of ticket inspectors did not have myki scanners.

"People are entitled to ask a number of questions. Why, why was the system rolled out before it was ready? Can it get any worse, and where is the minister?"

Baillieu slammed the government for rolling out a system before it was ready, accusing the minister of doing it for political reasons and then leaving the scene.

"This is obviously a critical time for the transport system. Lynne Kosky's known it, John Brumby's known it, but there are no ministers answering these questions. PR flaks and spokespeople are being rolled out to answer the questions. That's not good enough. This is a major plank of the government's transport plan."

When asked if Brumby and Kosky should return from their leave, Baillieu replied that at least the minister should come back and take control of the situation.

"They should be here... At least the minister should be here, but there's no one taking responsibility for this in the government whatsoever."

According to The Age, a government spokesperson had said that Kosky is on leave for family reasons. Neither the government nor myki's spokesperson had returned requests for comment at the time of writing.