While you might have read the news about Sydney christening one of its ferries ‘Ferry McFerryface‘ and laughed so hard that you had to lie down for a few hours and dab your forehead with a damp cloth, it appears not everyone was quite as thrilled with the announcement, with SBS News reporting that workers are refusing to crew the vessel until it gets a real name that a proper boat would have.
Transport minister Andrew Constance announced the name yesterday, in a decision he described as “one for the kids“. Ferry McFerryface was the runner-up in Sydney’s Name Your Ferry competition – they inscrutably decided that the winner, Boaty McBoatface, was too unoriginal, and yet they still went with this one. Hmm.
While the general consensus on social media seems to have been “this is dorky as shit, why did you do this,” workers from the Maritime Union of Australia have taken a much harder line against it, with assistant secretary of the Sydney branch of the union Paul Garrett telling SBS News people are bloody spitting chips:
The staff are currently working through the embarrassment of the announcement by the Transport Minister. There’s been a great number of members contact the union expressing their anger.
Garrett said that the name is incongruous with the dignity of the names of the rest of the ferries: “Ferries have always been named with a great deal of pride, after beaches, the First Fleet, aboriginal elders and iconic medical practitioners.”
Speaking to 2GB‘s Ray Hadley, he said he viewed it as a personal slight on their work:
The Transport Minister is demonstrating here that he treats public transport as a joke. He’s taking the absolute Mickey out of public transport in this state.
Sydney ferries have an iconic history with Sydney Harbour and are named after iconic beaches and iconic Olympians. The workers are just frustrated with it.
According to SBS, the union is currently discussing its concerns with Harbour City Ferries.
