The cost of having more traffic congestion is > the cost of people abusing the system.
It costs the NSW government Billions as people are stuck on the road and are not productive.
Problem is you need enough reliable data rather than media opinion pieces to back up any assertion though it may sound logical and reasonable.
Disclaimer: I am not supporting this move either but this problem is more complex-people getting stuck on roads and not productive have more than one reason besides not taking public transport, it is polycentric problem and it has polycentric causes-(we can't all blame opal card changes solely on this)-i.e. it might be because they choose to work further away from homes because housing prices are so damn high theses days and at this rate it will be tomorrow morning and I will have already written a thesis which is not my desire nor do I have the time to do so. Before we take one side to any argument or debate, it may pay to consider the other side as well, governments don't always do things we like-because they have other responsibilities too, it is not as simple as keeping electors satisfied, it is to keep the majority of them satisfied whilst satisfying their own political agendas, budget constraints and resource limitations which are all very real issues that we often don't know about or ignore because we attack things at a piecemeal fashion.
(
