Community & Business
9 August, 2023
When's the bus coming?
A local employment support worker has started a petition calling for a regular public bus service between Oakey and Toowoomba to create more job opportunities.
At 6.8 per cent in the 2021 Census, Oakey has a higher rate of unemployment than Queensland does (5.4 per cent).
The median household income ($1,213) in Oakey is significantly less than the state average ($1,675).
For local employment support worker, Jasmine Haskings, the people she meets daily are enough to say that a public bus service is needed between Oakey and Toowoomba to help bridge the gap.
Day after day she sees, people with few job opportunities who don’t have drivers’ licences and who may have burned their relationships with local employers walk
“I wish the coal train was a passenger train,” she said.
“I think the lack of public transport is an excuse for some people.
“In Toowoomba, people don’t know your history”
Her co-worker, Sarah Rickard, agrees with Jasmine’s proposal.
“We’ve got cases of inter-generational poverty,” she said.
“They can’t better themselves if they can’t afford to leave their postcode.”
In a statement, Translink said the Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) doesn’t believe that the population of Oakey and surrounding towns
can justify a regular bus service.
‘TMR is committed to providing fair and equitable access to public transport services,” the spokesperson said.
“We recognise that public transport brings benefits to all types of communities across the State, however providing these services comes at a cost to Government.
“The provision of transport services to all areas of Queensland is challenging, particularly in rural and rural residential areas where demand is inadequate to support scheduled services.
“There are currently no plans to provide services in Oakey, Kingsthorpe and Goombungee, however Translink will continue to monitor population levels in the area.”
For Jasmine, having grown up catching a public bus into Toowoomba from Crows Nest, a town with a smaller population and less proximity to Toowoomba than Oakey, this excuse simply doesn’t wash.
“Many people we see (in Oakey) don’t have licences, or they’re young people who are in the process of getting licences,” she said.
“It might sound silly, but a trip to Toowoomba was a big outing for me.
“I think a bus would help people to get more support and open their eyes.”
“People often come in and confuse us with Centrelink and we have to send them to Centrelink in Toowoomba.”
“It feels like the supermarkets are able to take advantage (of the lack of competition for prices), Sarah Rickard.
“It feels like you’re on the moon out here.”
Jasmine says with only four major employers in town it was easy to cut off employment opportunities.
“It’s a small town with a long memory, she said.
“I suspect some of these places if you’d done something twenty years ago, they would remember it.”
“People can’t go to work at the abattoir, at JBS (Beef City), at IGA and at Riverina because they’ve broken off ties with everyone there.”
The lack of regular and reliable public transport is something that is a regular factor in local court cases.
The visiting magistrate in Oakey regularly must take into account the fact that people who lose their licence have no obvious option for a lift to work, and cannot rely on the public transport service like they can in Brisbane and Queensland’s larger regional centres.
Jasmine says that a bus service would likely also assist some of her younger clients with finding work at fast food and retail jobs in Toowoomba.
Translink says the benefits of public transport are threefold - it’s better for physical health, is generally cheaper than travelling by car, and it helps reduce pollution.
Sarah Rickard says things cannot stay the same for the people she works with.
“I’ve worked in Tara, this is the way Oakey is going,” she said.
“People just want to keep things the same.”
A community bus service between Oakey and Toowoomba runs twice a week.
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