Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
IN FOCUS<br />
MELBOURNE PROTEST BUS<br />
MELBOURNE<br />
OPERATOR<br />
TAKES PROTEST<br />
BUS TO THE<br />
STREETS<br />
Victorian border closure uncertainty – affecting a<br />
charter bus business’s ability to reliably plan and<br />
honour tour bookings – plus Melbourne’s strict<br />
metro lockdown restrictions forced one local<br />
family owned and run bus operator to visibly<br />
protest his plight and put more than half of his<br />
bus fleet up for auction to help pay a spiralling<br />
multi-million dollar debt.<br />
Laurie Pincini of Rockleigh Tours<br />
drove his protest bus around<br />
Melbourne metro precinct<br />
recently, covered in anti-Victoria<br />
premier Dan Andrews slogans.<br />
Pincini says his business is “going<br />
backwards” and that “it’s screwed”, after<br />
having to put 12 of his 22 buses up for<br />
auction.<br />
Speaking exclusively to <strong>ABC</strong>, he said<br />
that he has had to diversify his workload<br />
to include hay bailing and silage trucking<br />
to keep money flowing and help reduce<br />
a $3.8 million (and growing) debt –<br />
Pincini recounted a harrowing financial<br />
predicament being felt by charter bus<br />
operators Australia-wide.<br />
“We are driving silage trucks, we are<br />
doing hay contracting, we’re doing<br />
anything to try to make a dollar, mate –<br />
we’ve been closed since March 16,”<br />
Pincini said.<br />
“I’ve had one bus a day, or you know<br />
a couple out… Out of the 22 buses, the<br />
maximum I’ve had [doing] work has been<br />
five in one day doing V/Line at night-time,<br />
at 3.00am, 4.00am in the morning. That<br />
doesn’t’ pay the bills when it costs us<br />
$200K a month to open the door and<br />
you’ve only got $50K a month coming in.<br />
“We’ve been in the bus game now for<br />
just on 75 years. We employ my sons,<br />
my daughters, my sons-in-laws, uncles,<br />
fathers in-laws, bloomin’ my kid’s uncle’s<br />
brothers-in-laws plus families and<br />
everything in the local community.<br />
“Come the end of December and<br />
something opens and goes bang! They are<br />
all out of work because JobKeeper doesn’t<br />
work past then when I’ve got to pay them<br />
the 20 hours a week. I can’t afford it!”<br />
When asked what the motivation behind<br />
the protest bus was, Pincini referred<br />
comparatively to the situation in NSW and<br />
said: “It’s been causing waves; it’s all around<br />
the world.”<br />
The bus started doing the rounds<br />
recently when the amended Victorian<br />
Omnibus bill – still contentiously<br />
interpreted by pro-democracy civil<br />
libertarians while championed and<br />
defended by premier Daniel Andrews<br />
MP – was passed.<br />
THE STRESS<br />
Asked about the stress and impact this is<br />
all having on his family and himself, Pincini<br />
replied: “Well, mate – I’ve called Beyond<br />
40<br />
<strong>ABC</strong> November 2020 busnews.com.au
Change language