Luna Park is tonight launching legal action to ensure its New Year’s Eve party goes ahead as the rail union’s industrial action threatens to throw Sydney’s plans in disarray.
The venue’s harbour party is one of the biggest events of the night and all 6500 tickets have been sold.
Luna Park said it is extremely concerned with the timing of the industrial action and is also aware of other entertainment venues exploring their legal options.
It comes as the Rail, Tram and Bus Union chose to continue their industrial action despite Police Commissioner Karen Webb threatening to cancel the New Year’s Eve fireworks if the action goes ahead.
The union said the action would not have a large impact on passengers but rather on how far staff could travel on their shifts.
Today, Minister for Transport Jo Haylen said “no amount” of industrial action on New Year’s Eve would be considered tolerable.
“We cannot have industrial action at this time of the year, no amount of industrial action is tolerable,” she said.
“Without reliable train services, it is impossible to move millions of people who come to the harbour foreshore.
“The only way to get people in and out is through reliable train services.”
The NSW government is meeting with Fair Work on Tuesday to try and squash any action by the unions over New Year’s Eve.
As the industrial action continues, more than 350 train services were forced to be cancelled today.
The lines impacted the most included the T1 North Shore Line, T2 Leppington and Inner West Line, T3 Liverpool & Inner West Line and the T8 Airport Line.
Sydney Trains Chief Executive Matt Longland said passengers experienced gaps of up to an hour for train services.
”Passengers on some of those lines are experiencing gaps of 45 minutes to an hour… it could get worse later in the day,” he said.
“We’re asking passengers to avoid non-essential travel on.”
He said Sydney Trains was doing everything it could to prioritise services to the airport on one of the busiest days of the year for domestic and international travel.
Sydney is also hosting a number of events tonight, including the Randwick Races, the Big Bash at Sydney Olympic Park and Carols in the Domain.
“Allow plenty of extra travel time, we’ll be doing everything we can to keep families moving and to get them home after these events but it will get increasingly difficult throughout the day today,” Longland said.
“We have to sometimes make last-minute changes at the rail operation centre… sometimes the information available online, through transport apps or even on platforms are incorrect because we’re changing things in real time to keep trains moving
“Please don’t take that out on station staff.”