House of Assembly: Thursday, June 18, 2015

Contents

Oaklands Park Rail Crossing

Mr WINGARD (Mitchell) (14:23): I have a supplementary, as part of a separate project but tied in with this one is the resleepering of that bend of the rail line. The resleepering project is complete, yet the resleepering there has not taken place (à la there are still wooden sleepers instead of the concrete sleepers). Will residents have to wait for the 30-year version of the intersection upgrade, or will the resleepering happen before then?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister Assisting the Minister for Planning, Minister Assisting the Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (14:23): I am interested in drawing the two issues of whether a sleeper is concrete or wooden and the delays experienced by motorists with boom gates coming down. I am not sure that they are directly linked. I think the issue is more that there is an adjacent railway station. Trains enter a particular section of the rail network which triggers the signalling system, dropping the boom gates, making sure that until those trains are cleared at that section, the boom gates remain down.

If there is an alternative proposition that somebody (whether on the opposition benches or elsewhere) wants to put forward as to how this issue is to be resolved, I am all ears. But, we have presented a solution, we have costed the solution, and we have factored it into our 30-year transport plan. All of these things, Mr Speaker, are further steps than the absolute zero commitment that we have had from those sitting opposite to resolving this issue.