BUS CONTRACTS

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (15:06): Supplementary question: what is the payment to the private operators for the changed timetables?

The Hon. C.C. FOX (Bright—Minister for Transport Services) (15:06): I am happy to reiterate this. We have a $3 million cost, so—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Ms Chapman: You weren't there this morning.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. C.C. FOX: Well, surprisingly enough, member for Bragg, I was actually informed about timetable changes before this morning. Had I not been, I suspect you would have been quite upset. The entire cost is $3 million. If we take away $400,000 from the $3 million, there is approximately $2.6 million. Now, we have to obviously lease the buses—we have spoken about that—and we have to print the timetables.

The cost of changing any particular one timetable is around $10,000. However, most importantly, what we are doing here is increasing the reliability. To do that we have extra services, we have extra kilometres, we have extra drivers and, of course, there is a cost associated with that. I do not walk away from that investment in public transport. I think that is actually a good thing to have done.