Ramsay Electorate Public Transport

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay) (15:32): I rise today to talk about public transport in the northern suburbs. I rise today to speak on behalf of my constituents in the seat of Ramsay. The former Labor government was 100 per cent committed to investing in public transport. Affordable, efficient public transport is one of the critical deliverables of a state government. Public transport is an economic leveller. It allows people who cannot drive, people who do not have the economic means to own a car and people who are on low incomes, like pensioners and students, to still move around and access health, employment and entertainment services. It is also a very efficient means, particularly from my interchange in Salisbury, to get into the city; it is much quicker than the drive.

Public transport is a fundamental right of South Australians. This Marshall Liberal government were only three months into their first term when they started to slash and burn public transport services across the metropolitan area. A total of $46 million of cuts to services was announced in their first budget, and we are only just seeing the start of these cuts as they roll out.

Let's talk about some of the investments made under the former Labor government, including the electrification of the Seaford line, the expansion of the tram network, the delivery of the O-Bahn underpass, lowered fares and, in the north, the commencement of the electrification of the Gawler train line, upgrades to the Elizabeth and Parafield stations, improved safety at the Salisbury Interchange and extended car parks at Smithfield and Chidda.

People are willing to leave their cars and catch the train into the city. This is so successful that one of the biggest issues is capacity from Salisbury. We know that parking at the key public transport hubs of Salisbury and Mawson Lakes has now reached a critical point where it is becoming a safety and an access issue.

Furthermore, one of my constituents, an employee of Bedford Industries, was having problems with the Nurlutta upgrade, which has been upgraded to be fully accessible on only one side and not on the other. I have written to the minister about this issue and he is going to get there in the end, but if we truly want to make public transport effective and efficient for everyone we must pursue that it is accessible for all people.

We know they have followed this up with the cancelling of bus routes, making people's journeys even longer. They have said no to further expansion of the popular tramline we had planned for the future. Investment in public transport has dried up under the Marshall Liberal government and now they have announced that they will privatise our hugely popular train and tram services, proving that this Premier was hiding the truth from the people of South Australia when he claimed he had a no-privatisation agenda.

Who does this attitude really hurt? It hurts so many people in CBD businesses and services who lose trade as people instead support larger suburban shopping centres. It hurts the kids whose families cannot afford the extra cost to go to the cricket, the football or even our much-loved Christmas Pageant. It hurts CBD workers from the suburbs who cannot get parking to be able to use the train.

Labor showed that you can achieve major transport route improvement without cutting public transport. We commenced and delivered the Northern Expressway, the Northern Connector, the South Road upgrade and major regional road upgrades. We need to start making decisions to restore and improve our low-cost public transport system.

The people of Ramsay have some suggestions. They look at the collaboration with the City of Salisbury to jointly fund new multideck car parks at Salisbury and Mawson Lakes, both currently at capacity. They want grade separation at the Park Terrace level crossing to improve traffic flow, to be safer and improve economic viability for local businesses. They want to upgrade the Salisbury Interchange station, improving safety and connection with John Street and the new Salisbury hub precinct.

Most importantly, what they run to me for, sign my petition on and express their outrage on is the privatisation of our rail and tram services. They are very angry at this arrogant decision by the Marshall Liberal government to cut investment in infrastructure and cut services that they depend on every single day. They simply do not believe that they are going to become better and cheaper when they are privatised.