Outer Harbor Rail Line

Mr PISONI (Unley) (14:42): My question is to the Minister for Transport. Will the minister confirm to the house that he was advised of the six-week extension to the closure of the Outer Harbor line last Monday afternoon, and was last Monday afternoon the first time the minister or his office was advised of any extension to the closure of the Outer Harbor line?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, Minister for Housing and Urban Development) (14:43): I thank the member for Unley for his question. I mentioned in my comments to the media yesterday, in my explanations to the media yesterday, about what was going on. I had been advised of the necessity of the six-week delay not last Monday afternoon but this Monday afternoon, the one that preceded some 48 hours ago. It is as a result of very longstanding and ongoing negotiations between the alliance that is delivering the Torrens Rail Junction Project and the operator of the freight line, Australian Rail Track Corporation.

As you can imagine, given that the purpose of the project includes the grade separation of the freight line from the passenger lines, principally of the Outer Harbor lines through the Parklands, as well as some corollary benefits of the grade separation of the passenger line from Park Terrace and the removal of that level crossing and some level crossings further back in Bowden, given that it involves that grade separation between passenger and freight rail, we have to do all we can to make sure that ARTC can continue operating their freight services throughout the construction period.

To date, largely we have been successful in doing that, but we are getting towards the part of the project where we need to interrupt and interfere with the rail track that they operate. Indeed, we need to do that in a way where we can deliver the project that we are intending to deliver but we can give them the opportunity to maintain the rail freight services. These discussions, I am advised, first commenced back in January of this year.

As those discussions progressed, we understood that not only do we have to meet their operational requirements but, given that we were disturbing some of their infrastructure, we had to make good some of that disturbance. Not only did we have to make good some of that disturbance but ARTC has taken the opportunity, while we are in the corridor to do some works, to seek us to do some further works for the operation of their rail line.

I am advised that we have been trying for a period of a couple of months to get a window where we could go in during the current closure period of the Outer Harbor and Grange train lines to get those interfering-type works done and manage that within the window of the closure which we had previously announced which was due to expire in the first week of December. Unfortunately, despite a large number of meetings and workshops and interactions between the alliance team delivering the project and ARTC, we weren't successful in satisfying ARTC's requirements and needs until very late.

In fact, I am advised that it wasn't until late on Friday that the alliance team was told by ARTC that they were going to be given a window to do these works and that that window would be commencing from late on this coming Saturday night. Of course, my not being in the state on Friday, as I was attending a ministerial council meeting in Hobart, I was advised on Monday.

When I was advised on Monday, particularly advised what the window would be that we could avail ourselves of commencing from this Saturday night, as you could imagine my first question was something in the order of, 'Does this mean we can still get in this window in the current closure period?' The advice came back, 'No, we are going to need a much longer period than we originally envisaged.' That was a necessity to go out immediately, or as close to immediately as possible, and make the announcement yesterday.