SCHOOL BUSES

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (15:35): I, too, would like to speak about the issue of country school buses. There was an announcement by the former education minister some four years ago that all future school buses would be fitted with seatbelts, air conditioning and have increased rollover strength. This is a noble undertaking indeed, particularly with regard to air conditioning.

Students who reside in the electorate of Flinders travel many kilometres from school to home in the heat of the day under daylight saving conditions, the very hottest part of the day, so air conditioning, I would suggest, is paramount. Unfortunately, four years down the line, this announcement of the then minister remains a hollow promise. It is something that we hear all too often from this state government—hollow promises.

I would like to make the point today that school bus services are crucial to regional communities. In fact, in my own hometown of Cummins we have an area school which is serviced by some eight school buses, a mixture of both government and private buses, and they ferry students to and from outlying areas to the area school.

The manner in which the Department of Education and Children's Services has dealt with school bus operators—and the Bus and Coach Association, in particular—has, unfortunately, threatened these services. Evidently, there is a culture within DECS that is not conducive to negotiation with the industry, especially with respect to contract negotiations and the lack of consultation and engagement.

Currently, many school bus operators have no sense of certainty with respect to retaining their contracts. There are examples of businesses that have operated bus services for 40 years or more and they have no guarantee that they will be able to continue operating. This is simply unacceptable and, again, comes back to the reality that this government has failed and is continuing to fail regional communities.

School bus operators are in the situation where they have to continue to run older buses. The average age of the fleet in South Australia is roughly 22 years. That is significantly higher than all other states. In fact, the average age of school buses in all other states combined is about 14 years. The maximum allowable age for school buses is 25 years. The point I am making here is that to order a bus and take delivery takes some 18 months. So, school bus operators with a fleet of buses aged about 22 years need to know, with some security, their future.

School bus contractors view the four-year-old announcement of providing safer buses with much cynicism, and rightly so, because it has come to the point where it is very difficult to believe that anything will come to fruition four years after the 2006 announcement.

I would like to make a point about Australian made buses versus imported buses, because that is also noteworthy. Despite the fact that we make buses and coaches here in Adelaide, there has been a directive to utilise, buy and import overseas made buses. In fact, I have heard a story of a Korean-made bus that was running as a school bus coach and after some very few kilometres the back window fell out. Because they were unable to acquire parts for the Korean-made bus, the back window was secured in place with a rope—hardly an acceptable position.

It seems to me that it is farcical that reliable and committed operators, providing excellent service over many years in rural and regional areas, should have their livelihoods put at risk by throwing contracts open to a tender process. The minister should approach this in a sensible manner by allowing reliable contractors to operate with some certainty as to what their future holds. Evidently, there seems to be some inconsistencies between departments with respect to how they handle the tendering process.

In my opinion, by doing away with a nonsensical tendering process school bus operators can continue to provide a service to their communities—as they have done for many years and, hopefully, will do for many more years. If they are not able to do that, it would be yet another blow to rural communities. For what? No good reason.