Government is about making choices. For every choice that is made a hundred are not.
Power is the ability to make, steer, amend or block such choices.
Influence is 'having a seat at the table' or being considered when choices are made or contemplated.
If it is known that 'party X will not wear decision Y' and this is brought up as a reason for not doing Y then this indicates that X's influence is substantial. It might not even be necessary for X to ask that something be done (or not done) if the Overton Window shuts out anything that could be detrimental to X's interest. Change that threatens party X's position can be particularly confronting if it affects what they see as a normal right, habit or lifestyle rather than a special perk.
X can just as easily be a real or imagined class of people (eg car drivers, train users or traffic engineers) as much as a specific person. Consideration extended might involve people not having to pay for a scarce private good (like 'free' parking) on public property. Or not proceeding with a simpler and more frequent train timetable that was generally beneficial but which forced some commuters in some marginal seats to change trains. With several Frankston line seats on thin margins, this fate befell the cancelled 2015 Metro timetable. However the same government, emboldened by its strong 2018 electoral result, implemented features of it in the 2021 Metro timetable without undue controversy.
Some sectors appear to have better safety cultures than others, for instance rail engineering or aviation versus road engineering. A more flexible stance might be taken where something (like tram stop accessibility) is a legal requirement but the power of those requesting compliance is lower than the will of the government which has alternative uses for the billions of dollars this would entail. Offences like 'white collar' crime, culpable driving causing death or, until recent law tightening, industrial manslaughter may attract lighter or less custodial penalties than other crimes.
Some sectors appear to have better safety cultures than others, for instance rail engineering or aviation versus road engineering. A more flexible stance might be taken where something (like tram stop accessibility) is a legal requirement but the power of those requesting compliance is lower than the will of the government which has alternative uses for the billions of dollars this would entail. Offences like 'white collar' crime, culpable driving causing death or, until recent law tightening, industrial manslaughter may attract lighter or less custodial penalties than other crimes.
These and other examples show that power and influence are not distributed equally.
And they cannot be gauged just by looking at organisation charts.
Much is informal, behind the scenes and undocumented.
Organisations can gain standing by having their alumni on boards, as staffers and as executives of other bodies. In this cloistered environment it is generally known what the other influential players think with their perspectives accommodated.
On the other hand some nominally senior bodies can have less standing than one might think. Nominally strong bodies can be disorganised, constrained or ignored. Other smaller, newer or less known actors may have more influence.
On the other hand some nominally senior bodies can have less standing than one might think. Nominally strong bodies can be disorganised, constrained or ignored. Other smaller, newer or less known actors may have more influence.
There can sometimes be power vacuums with policy anarchy the result. This can either be bemoaned (by the cerebral academic and planning class who wished that authorities heeded them more and had more clout) or deftly exploited (by the more outcome-oriented policy entrepreneur class).
Power and influence are transient, dancing around like shadows created by a flickering flame.
Any attempt to measure them by an outsider won't be current or accurate. They can be highly location, time or issue dependent. And some powerful organisations (eg banks, super funds, developers, universities and even racing clubs) can make decisions that greatly affect land use and transport in this city.
Still, at least a relative quantification should be tried. Below is my crude attempt. Click for a clearer view. More power or influence is near the top. Government bodies are in white, non government in black. As the latter are often modally based I've tried to put them on a left-right axis of sustainability.
As noted above I've left off most non-transport bodies. However they can be important in setting agendas. An example was the CFMEU whose big success was getting thousands of jobs for their members made a part of Labor's 2014 platform. This was Project 10 000 (jobs) which became the Big Build (sold to the public as removing level crossings and building major rail and road projects).
RTBU and TWU haven't been so successful at this given public transport service per capita has actually declined on our busiest modes. Despite a 'Big Service' agenda for train, tram and bus being hugely transformative. However they are good at getting ex-leaders into Labor seats, joining others in a section of Labor Unity (TWU) or Industrial Left (RTBU). TWU can also claim success in convincing the government to decouple the bus driver role from any responsibility for fare collection (notably myki top-ups) during the pandemic, with driver safety a lobbying point. This made paying harder for passengers and led to the government losing control of fare compliance on buses (though DTP denies this, claiming high validation rates in its annual report). CFMEU has lately had major internal issues but willingness of the government to stimulate housing construction may give some hope to members as major transport infrastructure loses its shine.
More planning rather than transport advocates, YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) has risen to prominence in sympathy with Gen Y and Millennial concerns over housing affordability. These advocates for denser housing had a huge year in 2024, rising rapidly in public profile and influencing the government to plan for and incentivise dense housing near stations. The government's been saying the right things but has yet to commit to commensurate improvements in public transport frequency and directness to better connect new designated housing areas.
I've left off some central government institutions like Victrack, PT Ombudsman, Auditor-General and Treasury. I'm guessing some in the latter would privately disagree with some government projects like the Suburban Rail Loop and would likely favour road pricing. I also didn't include think tanks like the Grattan Institute since they dismantled their Transport and Cities Unit. That got a lot of media for their opposition to the Suburban Rail Loop but it didn't shift the state government's stance on it one iota.
Also omitted are unorganised passengers, though to be fair they were more vocal 15 years ago when train reliability was poor, there was less working from home and a letters column in mX newspaper. But if I was to plot it I would rank weekday peak CBD commuters as having vastly more influence than non-peak travellers (including mostly migrant evening and weekend casual workers). Proof of this can be seen in the politics of the 2010 election and what got done. That is an improvement in reliability (and to some extent frequency) for peak commuters but, especially for others in locations like Broadmeadows, Coburg and Epping, negligible improvements in off-peak and evening frequencies, which remain low. On the other hand regional and outer Melbourne weekday commuters have done well with improved V/Line frequencies, as has the overnight weekend economy with 'Night Network' commencing in 2016 (as an implementation of 2014's 'Homesafe' policy).
RTBU and TWU haven't been so successful at this given public transport service per capita has actually declined on our busiest modes. Despite a 'Big Service' agenda for train, tram and bus being hugely transformative. However they are good at getting ex-leaders into Labor seats, joining others in a section of Labor Unity (TWU) or Industrial Left (RTBU). TWU can also claim success in convincing the government to decouple the bus driver role from any responsibility for fare collection (notably myki top-ups) during the pandemic, with driver safety a lobbying point. This made paying harder for passengers and led to the government losing control of fare compliance on buses (though DTP denies this, claiming high validation rates in its annual report). CFMEU has lately had major internal issues but willingness of the government to stimulate housing construction may give some hope to members as major transport infrastructure loses its shine.
More planning rather than transport advocates, YIMBY (Yes In My Back Yard) has risen to prominence in sympathy with Gen Y and Millennial concerns over housing affordability. These advocates for denser housing had a huge year in 2024, rising rapidly in public profile and influencing the government to plan for and incentivise dense housing near stations. The government's been saying the right things but has yet to commit to commensurate improvements in public transport frequency and directness to better connect new designated housing areas.
I've left off some central government institutions like Victrack, PT Ombudsman, Auditor-General and Treasury. I'm guessing some in the latter would privately disagree with some government projects like the Suburban Rail Loop and would likely favour road pricing. I also didn't include think tanks like the Grattan Institute since they dismantled their Transport and Cities Unit. That got a lot of media for their opposition to the Suburban Rail Loop but it didn't shift the state government's stance on it one iota.
Also omitted are unorganised passengers, though to be fair they were more vocal 15 years ago when train reliability was poor, there was less working from home and a letters column in mX newspaper. But if I was to plot it I would rank weekday peak CBD commuters as having vastly more influence than non-peak travellers (including mostly migrant evening and weekend casual workers). Proof of this can be seen in the politics of the 2010 election and what got done. That is an improvement in reliability (and to some extent frequency) for peak commuters but, especially for others in locations like Broadmeadows, Coburg and Epping, negligible improvements in off-peak and evening frequencies, which remain low. On the other hand regional and outer Melbourne weekday commuters have done well with improved V/Line frequencies, as has the overnight weekend economy with 'Night Network' commencing in 2016 (as an implementation of 2014's 'Homesafe' policy).
I ranked the Department of Transport and Planning quite low even though it is, on-paper, the central department for the portfolio. Why? I just think it punches below its weight notwithstanding (until recently) high portfolio staffing growth. The big projects get snaffled by other bodies while potentially significant ones like bus network reform or tram accessibility hardly get funded. Some time ago the State Ombudsman confirmed earlier media reports that the then DoT was left out of initial Suburban Rail Loop planning. In 2021 the Auditor-General found DTP had no overall transport plan to have custodianship over. DTP's public profile is also low with its soon to depart Secretary leaving most media to the minister, spin-off delivery agencies or unnamed officials quoted in news articles.
DTP/DoT's weakness is not confined to the current government; James Murphy's The Making and Unmaking of East-West Link suggested similar a decade ago for major projects. The result, he wrote, is a contested and anarchic policy environment open for 'policy entrepreneurs' within and even outside government can have out-sized influence profile. Nature abhors a vacuum after all.
What do you think about this list? Should others be on it? Or are certain bodies more or less influential than I've indicated? Comments are welcome and can be left below.
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