Bills

Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) (Miscellaneous No 3) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (17:42): Thank you, Deputy Speaker. Now that you have taken that opportunity, could I also welcome some other important guests who reside in the very important location of the seat of Lee.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I do not think you are allowed to do that.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: No, I am not, but it has just been done I think.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: If you told me what to say I could think about it.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: It seems what is done cannot be undone. I apologise.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: If I were saying their names, what names would I say?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Now you are testing both my memory and also my eyesight.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: We just know they are important because there is that aura around them as they sit there.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I can see a former Speaker of this very chamber sitting up there, the Hon. Mr Norm Peterson.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Norm, I do declare. Welcome to our parliament today. I am on notice too now because he knows the rules.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: You are; let's just pretend this never happened. Where were we? Four—that is where we were—as opposed to the more than 60 boom gate crossings that occur for Adelaide Metro Belair train services. In order to fulfil the member for Davenport's desire to remove these level crossing interactions, is he suggesting that we get rid of the Belair train? Can he finally make good on what Diana Laidlaw came so close to doing? She got half the way there—she got rid of one track. It seems there is only one to go for the member for Davenport. Is that what he is supposing?

From that one small example, as well as what I have already said, it is clear that just the most cursory of Google searches could provide enough information to enlighten the Liberal opposition when it comes to coming up with a decent transport plan for South Australia. I was able to do it while he was on his feet—he spoke for no more than 13 or 14 minutes—but there was one more element to the plan. In fact, I heard the groan of frustration; you all thought I was going to wind up then. There was one more part to the Globe Link plan which has not been as well thought out, and that is the concept of having a freight-only airport.

They quoted the experience of the newly built Toowoomba Airport to show just how successful regional freight-only airports can be, inconveniently overlooking that it is not a freight-only airport. It is an airport which, yes, services freight, but it also services passengers just as we do in South Australia at Adelaide Airport. The reason more airlines want to fly into Adelaide is not just to carry more tourists into South Australia or outward bound to destinations, such as the Middle East or into China, as we have secured with further airline services, it is so they have this new fast-freight route in the belly of all these aeroplanes. That is the business model that makes it work.

It is a great disappointment to me that at the coming election we would be seriously contemplating spending billions of dollars just to sandbag these safe Liberal seats on a transport plan which is manifestly uneconomical, which is logistically impossible for the heavy industry freight industry and which ignores the fact that freight capacity improvements are already being provided via an industry-Australia sanction and a federal Coalition government-funded initiative, which is the upgrade of the Torrens rail junction on top of the Goodwood rail junction, which has already been provided. It is extraordinary.

No matter how much they dress this up as being some sort of seminal fight that will be played out in the seats of Elder and Badcoe, the opposite should be true for them because the compelling offering that this government has for them is that they will get massive traffic improvements, massive improvements to their local communities and massive improvements in their travel times through the upgrade of the north-south corridor, all of which, under a future state Liberal government, will be wiped away.

It is timely that the deputy leader has come into the chamber right now because of course she was the one who quite proudly late in 2013 said that, should the state Liberals be elected to form government in South Australia, the Torrens to Torrens project will be scrapped. Never mind the 480 jobs per year which that project has supported and never mind the improved access to and from the CBD for all those people who live in the north-western suburbs like—

Mr Bell interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Davenport wants to leave us?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Never mind that for all the people who rely on Torrens Road, Port Road and Grange Road to get to and from the city, let alone all those communities in those suburbs—whether it is Ridleyton, West Croydon, West Hindmarsh or Hindmarsh—who will benefit from that project, those benefits would have been denied to those communities of South Australia. Not only would those jobs not have been supported, but bear in mind that currently 98 per cent of the people who have been working on that project are South Australians.

Never mind the 6,000 or 7,000 tonnes of Arrium steel underpinning these constructions on the bridges for Grange Road, Port Road and Torrens Road, let alone all the piles that are being built in between the bridges along the new lowered motorway corridor. That is why this government as well as no sane federal funding body will be looking at funding that ridiculous policy called Globe Link. That is why this current federal Coalition government is instead joining with the state Labor government to fund the upgrade to the north-south corridor.

With that, Deputy Speaker, I thank you and the parliament once again for your indulgence in dealing with what is a relatively minor bill and what could be considered a fairly routine administrative bill. What we have had as a result of the national rail safety reform is a consistent national framework governing all rail operations—whether they are passenger-related, freight-related or tourism-related—and we have also managed to attract its head office here. We have also taken on the responsibility of lead legislator, which is why we move this bill through this chamber.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (17:50): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.