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Maritime Workers Are Boycotting Sydney’s Ferry McFerryface

Ferry unions are somewhat understandably insulted by the “bad joke”.

Yesterday, Australia—a poll-obsessed country, it must be said—witnessed democracy in action after an internet vote christened a new Sydney harbour ferry “Ferry McFerryface”. "[The ferry] will be the harbour's newest icon, and I hope it brings a smile to the faces of visitors and locals alike,” the NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance told the press.

Today, the fall out. Maritime Union of Australia NSW assistant branch secretary Paul Garrett told the AAP that ferry workers are "insulted" by Constance’s choice to yield to public opinion. More than 15, 000 people voted in the online ferry-naming poll, although interestingly the actual winner was “Boaty McBoatface”—which topped a similar UK poll a while back, and so was therefore deemed too unoriginal.

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Sydney’s ferry builders are extremely unimpressed and will refuse to work on McFerryface. "They should have named the ferry after a prominent or eminent Australian or an indigenous leader," Garrett wokely observed.

Other ferries in the fleet are named after the likes of historical Aboriginal leaders Bungaree and Pemulwuy and medical doctors Victor Chan, Catherine Hamlin and Fred Hollows.

“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 has had an iconic history with Sydney Harbour and are named after iconic beaches and iconic Olympians. The workers are just frustrated with it,” Garrett said.

According to the Maritime Union, one ferry in every fleet is typically kept out of the water as a back up. This sad fate is likely what awaits the noble McFerryface, unless the NSW Department of Transport has a change of heart and renames it literally anything else.

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