Public Transport

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (14:15): My question is to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. Will the minister rule out privatising one or more of Adelaide Metro train or tram services or contracting out the operations of any of the tram or train network services?

The Hon. V.A. Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Attorney-General is called to order. Minister for Transport, did you catch that question? I ask members to not interject while the question is being asked.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:16): I think I can now understand what the theme of what the shadow minister is trying to get at in relation to the privatisation agenda—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! We have the question.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Premier is called to order. The member for Waite is called to order. Members on my right, be quiet. The minister is trying to have a crack at the answer.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —forests, the lands titles office. I will tell you one thing that we are actually having to look into at the moment, and that is the privatisation of the motor registry, because a deal done by the former government forces us to have a look at it. What's interesting here is that—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —what we have at the moment is a privatised bus network. It has been in private hands for a long time. Again, if this was not a good way to do business, then the former government had three iterations of contract to change that. What we did have under the former government was a privatisation of parts of our road maintenance network. Again, if there was a problem with that, the former government had plenty of opportunity to change the way those contracting arrangements worked to bring them back in-house. They chose not to.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order: the minister is talking about bus networks. I am asking a question about tram and train networks. I ask you to bring him back and stop debating the question.

The SPEAKER: The point of order is for whether the minister is replying to the substance of the question. I suppose he is speaking about transport germanely. I will allow him some time to warm up and then I ask him to come back to the substance of the question. Thank you.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Sure, Mr Speaker. Can I say that we also announced last Friday our model in relation to what the South Australian public transport authority is going to look like. That model is one that will stay inside the department. That model will essentially provide an authority for us to bring together all of the elements of public transport that existed in quite a disparate and disjointed fashion right across the department.

What we have been able to do now is bring together the bus, the heavy and the light rail operations, to bring the public transport planning people together with those back-office functions that support that so that we can actually finally have a single area that has very clear reporting lines that allows us to improve our customer focus and essentially—

Mr Malinauskas: After you've made the cuts.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —delivers on that promise—

Mr Picton: Are you going to privatise?

The SPEAKER: The member for Kaurna is called to order.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —that we took to the last election. That was very much that we wanted to create a customer focused organisation. We believe that the best way for that to happen is the model that we announced last Friday, that model that brings together all of these—

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order: debate again, sir. My question was very simple: is the minister planning to privatise our train and tram services?

The SPEAKER: I have the point of order. I believe the minister is concluding his answer.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Sure.

The SPEAKER: The member for Newland has the call. I will come back to the member for West Torrens.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!