NSW transport minister: all passengers now off stranded trains
The NSW Minister for Transport John Graham has made a statement on the Sydney transport chaos this afternoon.
I have this evening been briefed at the Rail Operations Centre by Sydney Trains CEO Matt Longland and Howard Collins, TfNSW Coordinator General.
This is a very serious incident in a critical part of the rail network and we apologise to all train passengers affected and trying to get home tonight.
The position of the train at Strathfield is a major artery of the network and has caused huge disruption.
Passengers have now been taken off the stranded train that was entangled in wiring, as well as three other trains that were stopped with passengers onboard.
Teams are now working to cut the entangled train away and an assessment made of recovery work needed. We will update on how that work progresses tonight and any flow-on impacts into tomorrow morning.
Sydney Trains is running shuttle services that avoid the Strathfield – Homebush area to the north, west and south-west.
Key events
Continued from previous post:
The Sofronoff inquiry found the ACT’s top prosecutor, Shane Drumgold, had lost objectivity over the Lehrmann case and had knowingly lied about a note of his meeting with broadcaster Lisa Wilkinson.
The ACT Integrity Commission found that the majority of the Sofronoff inquiry’s findings were not legally unreasonable.
But it found Sofronoff’s behaviour during the inquiry gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias and he might have been influenced by the publicly expressed views of journalist Janet Albrechtsen.
Sofronoff repeatedly messaged the News Corp journalist and eventually leaked her an advance copy of his final report.
That leak led to the Integrity Commission’s “serious corrupt conduct finding” in March.
Justice Abraham reserved her decision on the bid to dismiss Sofranoff’s court challenge.
– AAP
Walter Sofronoff asks Federal court to throw out ACT corruption watchdog’s findings
A former judge trying to overturn a finding he engaged in serious corrupt conduct during his inquiry into Bruce Lehrmann’s criminal prosecution is fighting a legal move to throw out his challenge, AAP reports.
Walter Sofronoff KC has asked the Federal court to toss out the ACT corruption watchdog’s findings delivered in March, stemming from leaks to a journalist.
Justice Wendy Abraham on Tuesday heard arguments from Alison Hammond, for the ACT parliament’s speaker, that the Integrity Commission’s report into Sofronoff’s Lehrmann inquiry is protected by parliamentary privilege.
Sofronoff chaired a board of inquiry into the ACT’s criminal justice system after controversy plagued the prosecution of Lehrmann, accused of raping then-colleague Brittany Higgins in a ministerial office at Parliament House in 2019.
Lehrmann maintains his innocence. In the criminal trial in 2022 he pleaded not guilty to one charge of sexual intercourse without consent, denying that any sexual activity occurred. A 2022 criminal trial was abandoned with no verdict because of juror misconduct.
In December of that year prosecutors dropped charges against him for the alleged rape of Higgins, saying a retrial would pose an “unacceptable risk” to her health.
On Tuesday, Hammond said the ACT speaker submitted that the corruption report was a proceeding in parliament “such that parliamentary privilege attaches to it”.
Sofronoff’s claim would infringe that privilege and should be dismissed, she said:
There is a sufficiently close functional connection between a report prepared by the commission … and the work of the legislative assembly so as to attract parliamentary privileged content.
The speaker’s position was that a challenge to or judicial review of a corruption inquiry was available to applicants but not after a report was completed and submitted to the speaker, Hammond said.
Adam Pomerenke KC, for Sofronoff, argued the corruption investigation had occurred outside empowering statutes, while errors in the report had already been admitted:
It’s this publication on the commission’s website, outside the legislative assembly, publication to the world, which is doing the real damage on our case to Mr Sofronoff’s reputation.
The Integrity Commission’s duty to expose corruption “has nothing to do with the legislative assembly”, Pomerenke said:
The mere tabling of a document in parliament … is not part of enacting the business of the house or committee.
Continued in next post
NSW transport minister: all passengers now off stranded trains
The NSW Minister for Transport John Graham has made a statement on the Sydney transport chaos this afternoon.
I have this evening been briefed at the Rail Operations Centre by Sydney Trains CEO Matt Longland and Howard Collins, TfNSW Coordinator General.
This is a very serious incident in a critical part of the rail network and we apologise to all train passengers affected and trying to get home tonight.
The position of the train at Strathfield is a major artery of the network and has caused huge disruption.
Passengers have now been taken off the stranded train that was entangled in wiring, as well as three other trains that were stopped with passengers onboard.
Teams are now working to cut the entangled train away and an assessment made of recovery work needed. We will update on how that work progresses tonight and any flow-on impacts into tomorrow morning.
Sydney Trains is running shuttle services that avoid the Strathfield – Homebush area to the north, west and south-west.
Tim Wilson wins Goldstein, beating Zoe Daniel by 128 votes
All the votes in Goldstein have finally been counted and Liberal Tim Wilson has defeated independent MP Zoe Daniel by 128 votes.
Wilson’s lead, which was only 204 votes this morning, narrowed considerably with a small amount of postal votes counted today, but there were not quite enough in Daniel’s favour. Preference distribution is still to come, but unless it skews wildly towards Daniel, then Wilson has won.
With no votes left to count, Liberal Tim Wilson has defeated Independent Zoe Daniel to win Goldstein by 128 votes.
— Antony Green – elections (@AntonyGreenElec) May 20, 2025
Elias Visontay
Sydney transport officials consulting Google Maps to help commuters find a way home
Communications between train workers in Sydney also appear to be strained as a result of the outages caused by this afternoon’s accident.
Frustrated commuters who swarmed around rail workers at Central station asking how they could get home, didn’t get clear answers from transport officials but were diverted to nearby bus stops.
The Guardian saw transport officials checking Google Maps to work out routes home for commuters, relying on that data rather than on internal Transport for NSW communications.
Confusion was heightened by platform announcements at odds with information displayed on station screens for each train service. At one point, a train that appeared to be headed for the airport – which was packed with travellers – emptied abruptly as a platform announcement informed passengers that the train on the neighbouring platform would instead operate the airport service.
Passengers now being escorted off stranded Strathfield train
As we noted earlier, the public transport chaos in Sydney this evening was caused by an incident near Sydney’s Strathfield stations in which live high-voltage electrical wires collapsed on to a train containing about 300 passengers.
Commuters are now being evacuated from the train, with news helicopters capturing footage of them disembarking one by one.
Luca Ittimani
RBA’s Bullock: monetary policy shouldn’t be used to control housing prices
The Reserve Bank governor, Michele Bullock, has said state and federal governments have to “step up” to fix the housing shortage, amid economists’ predictions today’s interest rate cut will see house prices surge.
All four major banks committed to drop their home loan rates by the end of the month after the RBA cut interest rates this afternoon, the second rate cut this year.
While that would drive homebuyer activity and lift home values, Bullock said her priority was jobs and consumer prices.
If the right thing to do in terms of employment and inflation is to lower interest rates, I think we have to accept what that might imply for housing prices.
If we start thinking about, ‘well, do we lower interest rates because of housing prices,’ we’re going to take our eye off the ball.
Bullock said the onus was on federal and state governments to resolve the underlying housing shortage.
I acknowledge that some people are worried that as interest rates come down, housing prices will rise, but other policies have really got to step up here.
While Bullock refused to say whether more rate cuts were on the way, markets are expecting at least another two this year, and to come sooner rather than later, raising their bets from a one-third to a two-third chance the rate will be cut at the next meeting in July.
Elias Visontay
Sydney commuter frustration mounts as train chaos continues
Rose Bilyk was at Central to catch a train home to the Fairfield area.
She lives on the T3 line, and previously relied on the Bankstown-Sydenham train line which is now shut for conversion to Metro. Her only alternative rail route in recent months has been to go via Strathfield – the centre of today’s chaos.
She said:
This is nuts, they have totally isolated south west Sydney because the only passage we had left was via Strathfield.
There is no train alternative for me, and they have cut the bus routes, so I have to try get as far south west as I can and then just get an Uber.
Coalition splits: the Nationals are breaking up with the Liberals after election defeat – video
The Nationals will enter into a new agreement with the Liberal party, ending the formal coalition for the first time since the 1980s. The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, said MPs had made the shock decision after a breakdown in negotiations with the opposition leader, Sussan Ley.
Catch up with that news here:
Elias Visontay
Sydney commuters pack Central station platforms, confused about train services
There were chaotic scenes at Sydney’s Central station this evening as thousands of commuters stood on crowded platforms hoping to board trains home.
Trains along the main western suburbs line were not moving, with carriages at crush capacity as commuters boarded, seemingly unaware that many services had been cancelled because of an accident involving high-voltage wires collapsing on the top of a train earlier in the day.
Station staff have erected tape to block entry to various platforms, but commuters remained unclear about the closures, with many ducking under the barriers to continue to platforms.
Jordi Bradley had travelled to Central for what she thought would be a quick transit to an express train home to Meadowbank, but soon realised she’d be spending much more of her evening on platform 19 than she had expected.
It’s a good thing I’ve got no plans tonight because I don’t think I’ll be getting on a train anytime soon.
There were people heading to the airport on the train I was on to get here, but they’re now stuck at Central with their luggage.
She has decided to wait on the platform rather than board one of the overcrowded trains
Nothing is moving.
