Public Transport

Mr MURRAY (Davenport) (14:48): My question is to the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government.

Mr Brown: Why are you still here?

The SPEAKER: The member for Playford can leave for the remainder of question time.

Mr MURRAY: Did you say, 'Why are you still here?' You mean like the Repat still here or different to that?

An honourable member: Don’t get smart. You are up the back row.

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr MURRAY: Oh, really? Thanks for your contribution.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Playford is leaving.

The honourable member for Playford having withdrawn from the chamber:

Mr MURRAY: Transforming Health. Ringing any bells? That was your work. Got elected, shut the Repat. Good work, keep it up! That's why you're there. Where was I? That's right, talking about the Repat. No, sorry, can the minister update the house on the Marshall Liberal government and how it is supporting South Australia's recovery through its public transport road map?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:49): I would like to thank the member for Davenport for his question. I note he and I have many discussions on how to improve public transport in his electorate and also how we deal with public transport in this time of coronavirus. We took advice from health officials back in March and put in place very early on in the pandemic measures to help support public transport usage, especially during those early stages, when we were seeing an increased number of cases on a day-by-day basis. Increased deep cleaning was put in place within a matter of days, as well as getting rid of cash handling on public transport, as well as helping to shape the way our services operate so that we can do so safely.

What has transpired over the course of a couple of months is we have seen very low levels of public transport usage, which has helped to improve the opportunity for people to socially distance. But as we see our economy open back up, as we see restrictions ease, we know that public transport usage is going to increase, which is why it was quite timely that the AHPPC considered new, updated advice in relation to public transport and advice that they released after national cabinet last Friday.

I know that whilst that advice was being considered by AHPPC, there are some who were providing gratuitous advice of their own. I am not sure that I am necessarily going to take the word of the member for West Torrens about what we should or shouldn't do on public transport. What I will do and what this government will do is take the advice of considered health experts with decades of experience in understanding how a pandemic operates and how a disease operates.

I did find rather offensive some of the comments in relation to the 'disease express' that potentially some members were talking about in The Bunyip newspaper last week, again trying to scare people and create fear in our community at a time when we need a high level of trust and public confidence.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Interestingly, in the time since we have had reduced train services operating across our diesel fleet and in the time since that service has been restored, we have not seen an outbreak. All those fears, fearmongering and scare put out there by members of the opposition in a disgraceful and some would say offensive way, have not come to pass.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Innovation is called to order.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: What this government will continue to do is get on and listen to the advice of the people who have decades of experience in actually helping to deliver good health outcomes as opposed to those who like to stand at the Adelaide Railway Station and offer gratuitous advice and fearmongering in our community.

Very quickly after national cabinet met, we released our road map as to what steps we are now going to take next to make sure that our public transport network can operate effectively, from things like changing the seating pattern on our trains, to provide more opportunity to socially distance, and accelerating the development of new apps to help provide better real time information to customers, to working to look at how we can change our timetable patterns so we can better pinpoint where those instances of high-density usage are, so that we can try to disperse some of that usage, and providing better signage around how people should flow through public transport so that we don't have that crossover issue, for instance, where people are trying to get off the train at the same time as people are trying to get on the train.

We have also put together a task force with the City of Adelaide to explore a whole host of ways that we can improve active travel options but also look at how we can understand public transport usage and its flow around our city, so that we can help to restore our economy to the greatest extent possible whilst also make sure that we continue to keep suppressed the COVID pandemic here in South Australia.