Sydney Alliance - My Speech For Us

Well, all the effort put into the speech for the Sydney Alliance was incredible.

Firstly, to be asked was a great honor - actually I didn't realise how important this speech was for the public crowd that was listening. I am used to speaking to local community, local groups, local crowds and local individuals.

I thank the great team behind Sydney Alliance to make my journey of speaking on behalf of our group, exciting, enthusiastic, entertaining and made it sound it was real life. And it was!

I was only one of three main speakers besides the opening and closing speakers. I was more at ease than I thought I was going to be - I had a good coach - Amy Williams from WSPTUG. She had spent hours with me devising the speech, editing restructuring, retyping it, rewriting and timing me. In those hours we didn't have any disagreement. We obviously had our single opinions to then accepting or not using it. Colorful thoughts were present by Amy bu t I will say the blood and guts of the speech was written by me - she just helped me make it sound right. From my heart 'Thank you' Amy!

Here's the speech:

My name is John Svoboda and I from the group Save Our Bus Services. Our Group is made up of Mount Druitt community members who are fighting for the return of vital bus services that have been taken away from us by the government.

We are fighting for the community because we have heard stories of hardship; stories like older women taking over one hour see their doctors, no buses on weekends, no buses early in morning or late at nights, stories of community members spending more on taxis because there are no buses.

I became involved with this group because of the impact of the removal of bus services would have on my life- travelling to and from work is going to be difficult for me- but I also became involved because the heart of the community was being ripped out.

Today I will share my story with you:

Our story begins nine months ago whilst waiting for a bus outside of Whalan Shops. I began talking to Betty to find out what the local community group was doing about the deletion of bus services in the area. Betty told me she would find out.

Two days later, I was talking to Joan, another community member, she told me she had really stirred things up talking to Betty. Joan told me not to worry- that was a good thing to get people doing things around area!

We decided to place posters up on bus stops around the area advertising a petition day for the reintroduction of bus services that were being deleted.

On the day we met community members and the local press. Within 2 hours we have over 500 hundred signatures on our petition. People came and told us how badly they were impacted by the removal of bus services by the government right across Mount Druitt. What we had thought was only going to be one street affected by the bus removal turned out to be more!

Next day we decided to form our group - Save Our Bus Services. Our first action was to draw up another petition which included all of the suburbs affected by the deletion of bus services in Mt. Druitt. By the end we got over 3000 petitions.

During our time:-

- We have held three community meetings with big turnout every time.

- We have made a film of community members from different suburbs talking
about their transport issues

- We have put over three hundred of our stories on our blog - stories of hardship,

- We have been interviewed by Radio 2UE, Chanel Nine, have had many stories in our
local papers and have spoken at Blacktown City Council meetings - to be heard!

In February this year, 6 of us met with the Minister of Transport, handed him over 3000 petitions and told him of our community stories. Within 2 weeks of this meeting, one of our major services 755 was immediately re-instated partially. Also a second limited bus service has just been re-instated.

We have had success- even when some us didn't see any hope in our cause and thought we were fighting a losing battle with the government.

Our story has inspired other community members to do other things for our community - Blake a 14 year old boy from the area has redesigned the bus network system for Mount Druitt - he will be present this to Blacktown City Council within the next few weeks. We have worked for the return of proper services so that life for the community would be easier. The community told us their problems, we heard and we have fought, and we have won and are winning back more, and still have a long way to go, only for the community! Community comes first!'