Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) (Miscellaneous No 2) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 13 April 2016.)

Mr PISONI (Unley) (17:28): I am the lead speaker for the opposition on this matter. I am pleased to say that we will be supporting this bill that is obviously of great importance to both regional and urban areas of South Australia and, of course, the entire nation because this brings national rail safety laws into play, and South Australia is the lead jurisdiction in order for that to happen. These changes were discussed with state and federal transport ministers and it is here before the South Australian parliament.

It is important that we get it right. I hope we have got it right. Certainly, the briefing I have had has made me very comfortable in supporting the bill. Rail transport is a crucial part of our South Australian economy, whether delivering commuters to their place of work safely and on time or in our regions delivering goods and produce to markets around the world. Office workers, families, miners, farmers, they all rely on a safe and efficient rail network and service provision.

This bill, of course, gives us a uniform set of rules and a uniform set of safety guidelines, so that it does not matter where you are, which state you are in, the same rules will apply. This will happen in other states automatically, except for Western Australia, which will also have to pass the legislation through their own parliament. A national approach with respect to standards, accreditation, penalties and education makes perfect sense, and that is why we are very pleased to support this bill.

Of course, I cannot talk about rail without some commentary on what has become of the government's plans to electrify the metropolitan rail service in South Australia. The importance of reliable and safe rail was of course highlighted recently with the failure of the Seaford line, which caused peak hour chaos and untold economic damage to thousands of commuters, as thousands of commuters were delayed for hours and were forced to find alternative transport for two days towards the end of April.

Commuters relying on services on other lines, such as the Grange line, were also affected as diesel trains were redirected to the Seaford route to rescue the electric service. These diesel trains were used in conjunction with the bus transfers from Brighton station. We have since learnt that the fault was caused by a circuit-breaker failure in the Lonsdale substation. The minister has promised that full details will be released in due course, and of course we will hold him to that commitment. I think it is in the interest of all South Australians to have an understanding of what went wrong, and hopefully we will get some reassurances that that situation will not happen again.

Of course, the $290 million Seaford extension has been plagued by other failures since its opening, such as when high-voltage cables snapped near Christies Beach in July last year, putting passengers and bystanders at risk of serious injury. This was the second time that the high-voltage line snapped and it was only after that second occurrence that there was a decision made to replace the entire high-voltage line. We were told there was a fault in the line, and let's hope that that has now been corrected and that we won't see a repeat of that issue.

There is no guarantee that we are safe from the risk of more disruptions on the Seaford line. A little bit later I will talk about a chronology with the Gawler line, the Outer Harbor line and the announcement of the electrification of the metropolitan rail line in Adelaide. You will recall that it was in May of 2012 that the then treasurer, the member for Playford, announced in his first and only budget that the electrification of the Gawler line would be suspended.

I suspect that was the motivation for the department to commission a report by Catlow and Hoare, a brief independent review of the Adelaide electrification project, dated June 2012. I understand the minister is aware of this report because he has confirmed the existence of the report on radio. What is concerning about that report is that, if the original time line for the northern line was completed, we would have seen a second feeder station, and then a third feeder station for the Outer Harbor line.

A significant risk is referred to by the authors of the report, and that is that relying on a single feeder into the system meant that, if there was any problem with that system, there was no shared power that would enable the system to continue. Instead of running 16 trains at a time on the Seaford line all the way to Seaford, a second feeder station might have meant fewer trains running on the line or, alternatively, trains could have run to Brighton Station, or slightly further south, and then be relieved by buses. There would have been a lot less disruption if there were a second feeder station, and that report goes into quite some detail as to why the risk is there.

We heard just recently about the unique nature of the only surviving switch, that it is a very unique switch and that there are no spares anywhere in the world, which of course has put those travelling on the Seaford line again at risk of being in the same situation they were in back in late April. There is another risk that could see the Seaford line with a single feeder station and a single transformer out for up to nine months. This report goes on to say:

The biggest risk is the lack of a spare SVC transformer which (in the worst case)—

And we know that things can always end up better than the worst case, but we do need to prepare for the worst case. That is what insurance is about; that is what case management is about—

would require construction of a new transformer with an estimated 9 month average lead time to procure and install.

So, if we did see a break in the transformer in a feeder station, according to this report we could see the Seaford line out for nine months. We would have a situation where again we would see a reduction in train services on the Grange line and we would see people reverting to buses at the Brighton Station, which is what we saw on the Thursday and Friday at the end of April.

Unfortunately, here in South Australia, despite all the promises, the electrification process has been fraught with stop-starts, promises, broken promises and a lack of delivery of those promises. I think it was 2005 when it was first floated that there would be an electrification of the Gawler line. In 2008 there was an upgrade. The electrification of the Gawler line was reported as possibly being brought forward by two years. This was back in 2008. That was an announcement by the government then, that the government was preparing a wish list for federal infrastructure funding.

By 2009 it was reported that a key aspect of the nation building infrastructure plan for South Australia included a $294 million modernisation of the Gawler line. In May 2009, the commonwealth government allocated $293.5 million to accelerate the upgrade of the Gawler line, including track works, electrification and station upgrades. In June of that year, it was reported that the completion date for the electrification of the Gawler line had been brought forward by two years, with an additional $190.3 million to be spent over three years. In 2011, stage 2 of the major track works of the Gawler line was to start (on 18 September) with the line to reopen on 12 April. Re-sleepering works were undertaken.

Transport chief, Rod Hook, at the time asked the Public Works Committee to approve an extra $12 million for the Gawler line upgrade to pay for a turnback facility missing from the original plans. Then in June 2012, after a pre-budget announcement, the electrification on the Gawler line had been deferred. The member for Playford announced:

Transport infrastructure projects have come under the Budget axe…Treasurer Jack Snelling yesterday put the handbrake on key parts of the State Government's big build program, while maintaining spending on projects…the Southern Expressway duplication…The Gawler rail line electrification has also been canned. The Treasurer yesterday said they remained Government priorities and he intended to restore the $318 million electrification funding when revenue returned.

But remember, it was federal funding that kicked it off. That was reported in The Advertiser on 1 June 2012. Then we saw the official opening of the restored Gawler Railway Station in August of that year. Commonwealth funding for a rail electrification project was reported as being negotiated to be kept by the state government, and that was a report in the Australian in that year. If we look at the analysis of that particular series of events by the Auditor-General in his June 2014 report, the Auditor-General says:

The Gawler commuter rail line joins the regional city of Gawler to the Adelaide CBD. In May 2009 the Commonwealth Government committed funding of $293.5 million to upgrade rail track and certain stations, and the electrification of the Gawler line.

In June 2012 the Commonwealth (Labor) government advised the Department to cease expenditure of Commonwealth funds on the project following the SA Government's decision in May 2012 to suspend the project. Further, in October 2012 the Commonwealth (Labor) Government, requested that unspent funds ($41 million) be returned to the Commonwealth Government. The Commonwealth Government advised the Department that $10 million of the unspent funds may be used for the Seaford rail extension and the remaining $31 million plus interest was required to be repaid in accordance with the National Partnership Agreement.

So, because the state government (the Weatherill government) decided that it was going to defer, instead of what we heard four years earlier, that there was going to be an acceleration of the project and it would be finished two years sooner, four years down the track we got an announcement that all work would stop because there was a budget crisis at that time in South Australia, and the unspent money was actually returned at the request of the Labor government in Canberra. It continues:

The Department returned the unspent funds, including interest, to the Commonwealth (Labor) Government in April 2013. In June 2014 the State Government announced a restart of the project from Adelaide to Salisbury with the project planned to recommence in 2017-18. In 2013-14 the Department assessed expenditure incurred to date on the project, which totalled $50 million.

The review identified a write-down of expenditure totalling $46.6 million.

A write-down is a write-off; in other words, money that has been spent and wasted. It continues:

The Department assessed that costs totalling $28.6 million incurred for the project between Salisbury and Gawler were deemed to be obsolete (wasted) or are not likely to provide any future economic benefit. Further, the Department determined that given that the project is planned to recommence in 2017-18, a considerable portion of the design, scoping, project supervision, tendering and mobilisation costs for the Adelaide to Salisbury section of the line totalling $18 million were deemed to be obsolete and are likely to be in the most part reincurred when the project recommences.

In other words, money that has been spent will be respent again because the money that was spent and what it was spent on are no longer of use because of the stop-start nature of this project. If the government had stuck to its original plan, if it had been able to manage this project from start to finish, as it said it was going to do back in 2005 and then again in 2008 when it said it was going to accelerate the Gawler line, it would have been finished before there was a decision to cease the work in the June 2012 budget. That gives you an idea of the disappointment that people living in the northern suburbs would be feeling at the moment.

Really, it is a comedy of errors when you consider the fanfare with which the electrification was announced, and what was actually delivered. We are still waiting for that delivery. We are not going to see a completion of that line before the next election. The government has said that there is some hope of starting work to take the line to Salisbury in the 2017-18 year, but I am not sure that we have seen the money for that work in the forward estimates yet, but we will see what the budget shows us next month.

That takes me to electrification of the Outer Harbor line. I was on the Public Works Committee at this time, and I remember it quite specifically because there was a lot of excitement about the prospect of this line being electrified and the options being considered. There was some talk about tram/trains, and there was talk about the extensions, and so forth, coming off the Outer Harbor line.

I refer to some excerpts from South Australian government media releases. The first excerpt relates to the June 2008 budget and states:

The main State Budget measures to be delivered over the next four years are:

$209 million to commence the electrification of the Noarlunga line;

$83 million to commence the electrification of the Outer Harbor line;

$162 million for a tram line extension to the Entertainment Centre and subsequent connection to the Outer Harbor line and the purchase of light rail vehicles—

I remember there was a lot of fanfare about that at the time—

$116 million for concrete re-sleepering of the Gawler line;

$64.4 million to acquire 80 additional buses over the next four years;

$29 million to begin the purchase of a new ticketing system; and

$14 million for short-term tram capacity options.

In September 2009, we had another media release from Patrick Conlon which stated:

The next stage of the Rann Government's $2 billion investment in metropolitan public transport infrastructure is set to get underway with almost $35 million worth of works at Port Adelaide.

Transport Minister Patrick Conlon says it is the first step in the future electrification of the Outer Harbor railway line and follows the successful upgrade of the Belair line.

This program of works will deliver a fast, electrified rail service linking Outer Harbor and the CBD and a tram service that will go through the central Port Adelaide commercial district and also to Semaphore.

I remind the house that it was September 2009 when the government made that announcement. Of course, to date there is still no movement on the Outer Harbor line. In May 2010, the then transport minister said, in relation to the Outer Harbor line, that 'successful companies were now being invited to tender for the electrification of the major works package'. He continued:

The $400 million electrification of the Adelaide rail network will provide a platform for more modern and efficient train services for commuters while reducing noise and local air pollution.

Of course, we are still waiting for that. The release then states, 'The program will also create around 2,000 jobs for South Australians.' We could certainly do with those. It then states, 'The scale of these works is unprecedented in metropolitan Adelaide,' and still is, because of course we still have not seen it, and continues:

…we're rolling this out along a network for over 100 kilometres of track across the metropolitan area from Gawler in the North, to Seaford down south and all the way to Outer Harbor.

That was more than six years ago. In February 2011, another media release announced the electrification of Adelaide's rail network. It stated:

The electrification of Adelaide's rail network will begin in earnest next year with the awarding of the contract for a major component of the more than $400 million electrification program to deliver hundreds of jobs to South Australians.

Mr Albanese and Mr Conlon said the first electrified services will run on the new Seaford rail line…and subsequently on the Noarlunga and Gawler lines later that same year, with electrification of the Outer Harbor line to be completed in 2015.

That was in 2015, last year, and I think we have not seen any money for the Outer Harbor line. As you can see, the government's record on providing electrification of train tracks, of the metropolitan rail service in South Australia, is a litany of stop-starts and excuses. Despite the fact that this government made a decision to stop work on the Gawler line in May 2012, and removed money from the budget that same year, the then Gillard government insisted on the money being returned. Conveniently, it was Mr Abbott's fault that we still do not have the northern line electrified. There is no mention of course—

An honourable member: Blame somebody else.

Mr PISONI: Blame somebody else, that's right. There is no mention of what is happening on the Outer Harbor line. We do not know what the government has planned or what the time line is. We do not know where the money has gone, the $2 billion for this project that was mentioned back in 2008. If I can take you back to some of the issues we have experienced as commuters and residents of this fine city, in the one line that is electrified—that is, the Seaford line with brand-new junction boxes—we find that the imported sheeting used contains asbestos.

Unfortunately, from what I could work out from the minister's answer when I asked questions about the report into the use of asbestos, it appears to still be there. Something that was illegally put in place is still there. There are still questions about the disposal of the offcuts and exposure to asbestos by construction workers. I have received documents from the department confirming that during the works on the Seaford line three workmen were exposed to asbestos; that concerns me greatly, but no-one seems to have any sense of urgency in dealing with the asbestos in these buildings.

Let's put this in perspective. Asbestos has been banned in Australia for nearly 20 years, and the bans in building materials started 20 years earlier than that. There were very strict guidelines for removing and disposing of asbestos. We can only assume, from learning about new asbestos board being used in new work on the Seaford line, that none of those processes was put in place, that none of those very strict regulations was put in place on how to deal with asbestos.

I think it was 25 January when the parliament received confirmation that asbestos was in those buildings, so one has to question why that asbestos is still there. If I were a customer and a builder put something outside of a specification in my building, it would not cost me anything to have that replaced. I would insist that it come out and be replaced immediately.

It is bamboozling to try to understand why that instruction has not been given to the contractor to remove that asbestos at their own cost unless, of course, it was not the contractor's fault, unless it was a specification from within the department or some other issue that has meant that no decision has been made on what to do with that asbestos. I think anybody who has been a victim of the asbestos-borne diseases would be very concerned to learn that there has been no sense of urgency in dealing with this.

I know the argument is, 'If you do not disturb it, it will be fine,' but that is providing it is not disturbed. What happens if there is an accident, an explosion or something else that happens in one of those boxes and the floor is disturbed and that asbestos is then exposed? But that is not the point. The point is that it is actually illegal to use it as a building product.

I do not know of any situation where, when something is done illegally or someone is acting illegally, they can continue to do so when it is known to be illegal. For example, it is illegal to grow marijuana, so I would not imagine that, once police establish that someone is growing marijuana, they would leave it there. My guess is they would immediately remove it and people would be charged and prosecuted. It is difficult to understand—

Mr Duluk: It depends on how many plants.

Mr PISONI: I am not quite sure of the details. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.