A subdued Friday on the bus

On this day, a new government is formally announced.

Last Friday (24 November) started off as normal. A 21 service into Courtenay Place, which winds around the hills of Karori. Passenger numbers were low for a Friday. The weather was not great, and a southerly blast was threatening to lash the city later that afternoon.

I arrived in town around seven minutes early and waited on Kent Terrace for one of the highlights of my day—the 83 to Eastbourne.

A dreary day at the Eastbourne Terminus. Not last Friday, but it captures the mood.

Once again, passenger numbers were down. I managed, for the first time ever, to get to the railway station just before my scheduled arrival time of 8:33 am. This trip finishes at the Eastbourne Terminus at 9:33 am. I was making such good time I had to wait for my departure time at Queensgate. This has never happened before.

Passengers, and their antics, go in cycles. I’m convinced the moon has something to do with it, although I haven’t looked at the moon chart to confirm or validate my theory. For three days in a row, I’ve had a passenger hop onto my 83, and ask “Do you go down Bell Road?” or, “Do you go along Gracefield Road?” or, “Do you go near the Mainfreight depot in Seaview?” I’ll go for a month or more before this happens again.

In each of these requests, I get my phone out, fire up Google Maps, and then together, with the passenger, work out what’s the best stop for them to get off the bus.

Similarly, I had two people, in two days, travel all the way to the Eastbourne terminus before they realised they were on the wrong bus and wanted to go to Courtenay Place in Wellington City. How they couldn’t work out that the sea was on the wrong side of the bus is beyond me. Too many faces buried in a phone screen not paying attention.

The woman on Friday who suffered this fate was at least reading a book. An actual book, with pages and everything. I got to the terminus and asked her if she was perhaps on the wrong bus. She confirmed she had made a mistake, and so I told her that if she waited 20 minutes, I could give her a ride into the city at no charge. After all, she had paid, albeit for a journey she didn’t intend to take.

But, I digress. Let me get to the point of this post.

I return to Wellington city and have a 35-minute break in Kent Terrace, from 11 am to 11:35 am. I log on the the NZ Herald to watch the announcement of the formation of the new coalition. An unlikely threesome. Christopher Luxon strides out to the podium with that confident swagger he has developed, demonstrating that he can “get things done”. He’s followed by the elder statesman and the boy.

Christopher keeps his address short and says he’ll go through the details after they’ve all signed the coalition agreement.

It’s Winston’s turn. He’s aggressive and petulant, and, there’s no detail.

Then David Seymour addresses the audience. And, boy, did he go on, and on, and on, and on. At this point I was striding up and down my bus, looking at my phone and shouting “Shut the f**k up!”

Right off the back, Seymour undermines the comments from the Prime minister-elect by pronouncing everything they have won and, in the process, stealing most of Christopher’s thunder. Is there any policies from NZ First and ACT that National negotiated away?

I turned the phone off. My 21 service to Vic Uni needed to depart.

My afternoon shift was as low-key as the morning. Passenger numbers were down. I arrived early at all my interim stops and had to wait, in some cases, up to three minutes for departure.

I finish my day with a 37 service from Brandon Street, which heads up the Terrace, and then follows the 21 route which I started my day with.

The 37 is a real commuter service. Not many people get on the bus at Brandon. I collect most of my passengers at the first stop on the Terrace, and then several more at the stop near the James Cook Hotel. These passengers are mainly government workers.

On a Friday, there’s usually banter, and people are friendly and talkative. On this day, the day of the signing of the coalition, not so much. I can’t help but think that some of these passengers will be contemplating their immediate future as workers in the public sector. If they are ‘back-office’ staff they’ll be even more concerned.

I can’t help but think that if passenger numbers are low today, what will passenger numbers look like in 100 days? How does 15,000 people losing their employment impact the Wellington, and national economy?

I can’t help but think about the conversations that might have been happening at their workplaces after the coalition agreements had been signed and then released. What was the mood in the office?

I can’t help but think that the sombre mood on the bus that afternoon was a direct result of the coalition announcement earlier that morning.

In that announcement, Christopher Luxon thanked the public service “for calmly keeping on” during the formation of the coalition. He went on to say “The new government is looking forward to working with you, and to delivering the government’s programs, and to getting things done for Kiwis”.

Does he not realise, or care, about what he says or how it sounds? 15,000 of these public service workers who calmly ‘kept on’ will soon be packing their belongings into a brown box and heading home to claim the unemployment benefit.

I fear the 37 and the 34, and a whole lot of other commuter services will remain subdued as the coalition implements their policies.

It’s not going to be fun, for anyone.