Melbourne's train shambles continues

I'm actually quite surprised that it has taken 16 months into Metro's franchise contract for running Melbourne's rail network before the you know what has hit the fan. While the previous Labor Government tried to buy some time in its dying last year in office by turfing out Connex and bringing in the Hong Kong operator MTR in a pathetic attempt to show that it was "doing something" after a decade of maladministration (in public transport), the current operator has the dismal record of achieving its monthly punctuality target 3 times in 16 attempts see here .
But what you're seeing now from the operator is a pathetic public relations diversion onto the big bad driver's union as a cover for their own incompetence and poor performance. Behind the scenes my spies tell me that Metro has gone after the union in an attempt to show them who's boss, which is actually a reaction to the perception (and perhaps the reality?) that the unions were running the show in the Connex days.
Metro has apparently referred a huge amount of internal disputes to Fair Work Australia for adjudication as they're not willing to bow to the union's demands. But what Metro is very quickly finding out is that thanks to 50 years of under investment, the network is run entirely on "goodwill". And when you have train drivers who bust a gut trying to run their trains on time by making up the time from a previous delay being questioned and threatened with the sack for doing a few kms over track speed, what do you think that does to morale and future performance? No, this is entirely an issue of the failure of the Metro management team to understand the realities on the ground, and take their people with them on the journey. But instead what you have is the worst of both worlds, a Hong Kong company which combines an autocratic Communist Party Politburo mentality with an executive team made up almost entirely of British managers with a master-servant attitude.
What these people fail to realise is that the drivers union can strangle the entire system by simply advising their members to "work to rule", ie work strictly by the book and don't do anyone ANY favours. The system is that dilapidated that that is all it takes to bring it to a grinding halt.
The British based National Express Group barely lasted 3 years with their master-servant attitude before they packed up shop and headed back to the mother country with their tails between their legs, and so the question being asked now is, will Metro even make it to 3 years?