Re: [Sydney] Ticketing - was Light Rail into the CBD?

[Daniel Borowski <boffa@NOSPAMaltavista.net>]

in article 3B18B710.EBFA84DA@ihug.com.au, Gobbledok at chippies@ihug.com.au
wrote on 2/6/01 7:51 PM:

> 
> 
> Bradley Torr wrote:
> 
>> a n d R e w ; <rods42@hotmail.com> wrote in article
>> <9f56m4$3sr$1@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au>...
>> 
>>> The last time I looked, you have to be willing to accept any job
>>> with up to 90 mins travel time each way in order to keep on
>>> receiving a Centrelink payment (eg. if you were offered a job
>>> with 80 mins travel time and refused it because it would take
>>> too long to travel, you would get penalised by Centrelink).
>> 
>> When I was on unemployment last year and I asked the fellows down at
>> Centrelink about this, they said that the 90 minutes was just a 'guideline'
>> issued by the Department of Social Security and that there really was no
>> fixed guide - the regulations (or legislation, as may be the case) merely
>> says 'reasonable distance' - a manager there said that 'reasonable' was
>> defined as 'if there's anybody in your neighbourhood who travels a certain
>> distance to work, then you should be able to do that too.'
>> 
>> They couldn't be specific as to what 'reasonable distance' was in my case,
>> and I wasn't about to knock on 200 doors in my neighbourhood to ask 'So
>> mate, where abouts do you work?'
>> 
>> I wonder how this rule applies to people who have poor access to public
>> transport - someone has a car and drives 90 minutes to work; an unemployed
>> person without a car has to catch a bus or train which takes 150 minutes -
>> is he still expected to travel the same distance?
>> 
>> At the time I was on unemployment, and I wasn't living too close to a
>> railway station - about half an hour's walk through a very shady area
>> dominated by prostitutes, drunkards, junkies and not very well lit, and
>> with no integrated bus/rail connection, last bus around 8pm. It usually
>> took me well over two hours to get to the city centre of Sydney - and these
>> days, employment tends to be much more dispersed around Sydney, so many
>> jobs would have been much much farther.
>> 
>> As it happens, I know that there were people in my precinct who worked in
>> Sydney, but they all drove - as railway station parking is extremely
>> limited and the buses here are abysmal when it comes to integration with
>> the trains.
>> 
>> Regards
>> BT
> 
> When I was on unemployment benefits in 1999 (straight out of university), I
> had
> to leave the Hunter valley, and head down to Sydney to look for work. I was
> staying with my sister in Penrith, and I was offerred a retail traineeship
> with
> Coles. There was a Coles supermarket only two blocks from where my sister
> lived, yet Coles placed me in a store at Ramsgate. I used to have to walk to
> Penrith Railway Station, catch a train from Penrith to Central (approx 1
> hour),
> a train from Central to Rockdale (approx 15 minutes), a bus from Rockdale to
> Ramsgate (approx 15 minutes), and I was at work...the travelling time took up
> nearly two and half hours, including waiting times at stations, and walking to
> the station...and the guy at Centrelink I spoke to said that I am able to
> include waiting times for the next available train, AND, the walking distance
> to the railway station...and basically, if I had the job anywhere outside a 15
> minute walking distance from Central station, I could have knocked back the
> job
> offer, and still gotten benefits.
> 

It works the same with university 'independent' youth allowance.  I was able
to prove that I was more than 90 mins from Melb uni living in Eltham by the
time I'd walked to the station (no bus), average wait for train, tram up
swanston st.  The way they explained it was what is the quickest way any
reasonable person would be able to get to your place of study.

Daniel