Bus Services

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:17): My question is to the Premier again. Will the Premier guarantee that patronage will rise as a result of the bus cuts announced on the weekend?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:18): I don't accept the premise of the question at all. The idea that we are doing anything other than reorganising our service in a way that people want to use—

Mr Malinauskas: There's no $46 million worth of cuts?

The SPEAKER: Leader!

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Cheltenham! You are obviously still grumpy from the Showdown result, as am I, but that's not an excuse.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: By reorganising the bus network in this way, we will see an increase in patronage, and the reason we know that is because that is what interstate and international experience tells us. This change isn't being taken in isolation: it comes off the back of us announcing a couple of weeks ago that we are switching to new apps based on the Google Transit feed specification, which means that we can give better real-time information to our customers to help them make informed choices about what they want to do.

It comes off the back of us spending almost a billion dollars in upgrading parts of our public transport network, whether that be the Paradise park-and-ride, which I know is going fantastically at the moment and there is a whole series of concrete pours happening as we speak, as well as finally electrifying the Gawler line—something that those opposite tried to do for a decade and just couldn't get done—as well as making sure that we deliver the Flinders Link train extension.

That helps to form part of the broader network of changes that we are making in public transport. These routes are out for consultation now. We do look forward to the feedback that people provide, but I want to put on the record for the house that, yes, there are some bus stops that are going. We have been up-front about that; we were up-front about that from day one. Of those bus stops, 31 per cent had zero average daily boardings—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. D.C. van Holst Pellekaan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Minister for Energy and Mining—helpful as always, but please.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —and 71 per cent of those stops had five or fewer boardings on them.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: For those people, we are not saying that you don't have access to a service. What we are saying is that you may need to walk a little bit further, but in exchange for that you will get access to a high-frequency corridor. Again, that is what our customers asked us to do.

Mr Brown interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Playford!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: And in their 'reveal choices' through the customer service survey they said, 'We want frequency above anything else,' and that's precisely what we are delivering them here.

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: In addition, 1,100 new Go Zone stops, 200 new kilometres of Go Zone coverage, which will see an increased service for 220,000 South Australians. Also, I want to point out that what we have in our current network isn't an equitable level of service right across our state. There is a differential level of service that is provided right across our state, and once you have accepted that premise, and certainly the former government accepted that premise, what you need to do is to take the assets you have—the 1,000 buses and bus drivers who come with them, as well as all the other back-of-house assets that we have—and you need to try to provide the most amount of good to the most amount of people possible. Again, that is precisely what we are here to do.

As a government, you have to govern for all South Australians and go with what works for as many people as possible. Again, for those 220,000 South Australians who are going to get access to a better service, they are precisely going to see the benefits of the changes that we are seeking to put in place.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Not in Aberfoyle Park!

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for West Torrens is now warned. I am going to give the leader one more and then we are moving to the member for Heysen.