Bills

Passenger Transport (Transit Barring Orders) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

The SPEAKER: The member for Elizabeth has leave to continue his remarks.

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (11:37): Just to recap, I had been saying before the Attorney's interruption that, along with the leader and the member for West Torrens, I attended a forum with the Transport Workers' Union of South Australia and Northern Territory. As I said, it was not just forum of union officials and politicians; it was a forum of bus drivers, bus operators and transit police, who were well represented, and they all had very similar concerns.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Would members leaving the chamber do so quietly. The member for Elizabeth has the call.

Mr ODENWALDER: Thank you, sir. Thank you for your protection. There were bus drivers and bus operators, and the event was also well represented by the transit police, by senior representatives of the transit police. They all agreed that something needed to be done or that many things in fact needed to be done, some of them urgent and some not so urgent, over the next few years in terms of bus driver safety.

Again, before the Attorney stood, I was relaying to the house some of the experiences of bus drivers as they responded to a survey during a four-month period when in fact patronage on buses was quite low, in fact at record lows, so I will continue with some of that time line.

On 28 May 2020, a bus driver at Paralowie was punched in the head and assaulted with a beer bottle, leaving him with facial injuries. On 3 June 2020, a bus driver at Marion shopping centre was assaulted by a bike rider. The windscreen wiper was ripped off and the driver was punched multiple times in the face. A bike rider was arrested and charged with aggravated assault. On 13 June 2020, a bus driver advised two passengers that the journey had come to an end at the Salisbury Interchange. The driver was forced to retreat from the bus by their aggressive behaviour. He was spat on and punched multiple times in the face. As a result, the driver was forced at that time to get a COVID-19 test.

On 18 June 2020—and I believe this incident gained some media attention at the time—a man stopped a bus at Glenelg, smashed the windscreen with a road sign, attempted to gain entry and terrified passengers and the driver. On 19 June 2020, a passenger demonstrated serious antisocial behaviour and made a number of derogatory and abusive remarks towards passengers and threats to everybody's safety. The driver made numerous calls for assistance, but on this occasion neither security nor police arrived.

On the 452 route, on 29 June 2020, a school-age female passenger allegedly had accelerant poured over her and was set alight by an older female passenger. On this occasion, other passengers assisted this young woman, but the bus was returned to the depot to be what they call 'changed out' due to the smell and the fumes caused by the incident. On 30 June 2020, on the 228 route—a route I know extremely well—from the city to Elizabeth, allegedly 10 intoxicated persons boarded the bus and proceeded to fight amongst themselves. The driver radioed for assistance and was allegedly advised to continue on and get them to their destination.

On 1 July 2020, around midday, a group of people were engaged in an altercation at Modbury Interchange. It allegedly resulted in a knife being produced and the driver called for assistance and this time police did attend.

This, of course, is the tip of the iceberg because we know from some of these results that drivers are increasingly reluctant to even report incidents because they believe that nothing will happen. They believe, in fact, that it may be detrimental, in some cases, to their working life to report these matters. So there is some work to do in this area and bus drivers and other transport workers need all the support and protections we can offer them.

As part of the research conducted by the Transport Workers' Union of South Australia and the Northern Territory, they conducted a survey of their member bus drivers and, when read with the incidents listed above, the results make pretty sobering reading. This survey showed clearly that many bus drivers fear being killed or seriously injured for simply doing their job. Indeed, it showed that assaults continued throughout the COVID period and continue to this day.

Many respondents felt there was a wider crisis engulfing our bus network where bus driver abuse has become so normalised it is simply seen as part of the job. This is clearly unacceptable and as a parliament we need to start thinking about all measures we can take to address this. The survey shows that since March 2020 more than 40 per cent of drivers now believe their job has become more unsafe and dangerous because of physical and verbal abuse. Over 60 per cent claim to have been verbally abused, and 7 per cent claim to have been physically assaulted, in only that short period.

The Transport Workers' Union and its members, as I said, believe that the true figure of assaults and intimidating antisocial behaviour on buses is much higher than the official government figures, and this is because, as I said, bus drivers have, in many cases—in far too many cases—stopped reporting physical and verbal assaults because daily abuse is now just seen as part of the job and they believe that nothing will get done.

I might just read some of the survey results directly into Hansard because I do think they are worth recording. Between March and July 2020, over 40 per cent of bus drivers felt that their job had become more dangerous; 14 per cent felt a lot less safe at work; 7 per cent of bus drivers have been physically assaulted; over 60 per cent of bus drivers have been verbally abused; 75 per cent felt that the current safety screens on buses are inadequate; and 82 per cent wanted driver protection systems installed.

Interestingly, at the height of COVID, only 2.8 per cent of drivers who were surveyed wanted Adelaide Metro to return to accepting cash. Perhaps most concerningly, as I have said, bus drivers are reporting that they no longer bother reporting assaults as they believe past complaints have not been acted upon appropriately or that, in some cases, the reporting process is just too hard.

I think it is worth at this point reading into Hansard some of the quantitative responses to this survey, because these are voices that rarely get heard in parliament. These are workers' voices, expressing real concerns and pleading for change, and there is a series of quotations:

I feel unsafe every night. I also feel underprepared and insufficiently trained to handle abusive passengers. Going cashless and having less personal contact with passengers, I believe helps deter possible conflict.

We need people at major points to check that they have metro cards and have money on them to stop people just walking on and making problems. The ones [passengers] that don't pay are the ones [passengers] that make trouble.

Response times to security issues is woeful… [The] Government needs to sort out non-paying customer issues. [The] driver is always the 'meat in the sandwich'...

We need more control on fare evasion. I find fare evasion cause most of these problems.

[I] would like to see security and bus inspectors on buses more often. And hand[ing] out fines for fare evasion and unruly behaviour.

I had a passenger verbally abuse me because they missed their train, which was due out at the time my service was due at the station. So I was abused for arriving at my due time when the passenger expected me to be early. Another passenger stayed between the man and me so he could not move closer to me and as soon as he walked away she thanked me for the ride. I did not report this as it's common to have passengers verbally abuse you for no reason.

Again, perhaps the most concerning part of all of this is the lack of reporting. I continue:

More security could be used at times on set routes with known trouble-makers. Response times can often be long and exacerbate the situation for the driver or other passengers.

All we have to do is ask if they have a ticket and [we] are called every name under the sun and we just sit there and take it.

Removing cash, more transit police, more security, more enforcement of fines, more inspectors would make most of us feel better about working.

Then there is this one:

[In] 2007 [I had] 3 broken ribs and punctured lung as a result of a passenger attack at Salisbury Interchange... 8 weeks on work cover and 4 days in hospital…

And further:

I don't think drivers should have to ask passengers who don't pay to purchase a ticket for the next ride... You have all sorts on buses and some don't like it when you ask them to pay…

We need something to stop re-offending fare evaders. It's happening all too often and more and more each day.

A serious attempt to stop fare evasion altogether is long overdue! These fare evaders are the main source of almost all our problems!

As a result of this survey, we see a lot of issues here. Clearly there are a lot of issues for the government to address and clearly there are issues for the transport operators themselves to address over time, but the importance of fare evasion and bus driver safety comes up time and time again, as it did at the original forum we attended.

This bill does not seek to address all the issues raised, but it does try to address fare evasion, which I am sure most people would see as a relatively minor issue. However, bus drivers and police made it very clear to us that fare evasion, particularly repeat and belligerent fare evasion, very often goes hand in hand with antisocial behaviour, intimidation and, far too often, violence. I seek leave to continue my remarks for a further 15 minutes.

Leave granted.

Members interjecting:

Mr ODENWALDER: The house just granted me leave.

The SPEAKER: The member for Elizabeth has the call.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for West Torrens will cease interjecting and the Deputy Premier will cease interjecting. The member for Elizabeth has the call.

Mr ODENWALDER: As I said, the forum, attended by me, the leader, the member for West Torrens and representatives of the bus operators and senior representatives of the transit police (as they were then), threw up a whole lot of issues. There were issues around driver safety, in terms of their safety within the cabin, there were issues about their electronic reporting systems, which do ultimately need to be addressed by the operators and perhaps even by regulation or legislation, but this issue of fare evasion was raised time and time again.

The Hon. V.A. Chapman: Your government did nothing about it.

Mr ODENWALDER: The Attorney-General refers to the actions of the previous government and I feel compelled to respond.

The SPEAKER: The member for Elizabeth will not respond to interjections.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr ODENWALDER: Yes, I will start again. I will respond then to my own internal dialogue.

Members interjecting:

Mr ODENWALDER: Yes, that is right. In the end, that is all we have got.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, the Minister for Energy and Mining!

Mr ODENWALDER: I will answer.

The SPEAKER: The member for Elizabeth has the call, with leave.

Mr ODENWALDER: I am proud of some of the things that, in a privatised environment, the previous government managed to achieve for public transport workers. There are provisions within the Criminal Law Consolidation Act that make it an aggravated offence to assault or otherwise antagonise certain classes of workers. We as a government included transport workers in that group of workers for the reasons I have articulated. They are a vulnerable group of workers, often alone—almost always alone in the sense that they are with a group of passengers—and often, in suburban terms, in isolated parts of our community at all hours of the day or night with no security.

As we have heard from some of the survey results, there are serious concerns about whether their internal security systems are communicating well enough with the state security system in order to provide them with the levels of security they need. We, in the previous government, provided for an aggravated offence or for an additional class of worker to be added to that aggravation of passenger transport workers.

But I digress, and I apologise. As I said, the bill does not seek to address all of those issues—and there are many, many issues—but it does try to address, in its own small way, the issue of fare evasion. Again, most people would see fare evasion as a minor issue. We have all been in a situation where perhaps we have not had enough ready money to get on the bus, our ticket has expired, or perhaps we have even been given grace by the driver to continue on a journey without paying, but we are not talking about those types of people. We are talking about people who deliberately, belligerently and repeatedly refused to pay a fare, even when asked to by drivers or transport officials.

The bus drivers and the transit police themselves made it very clear to those of us present that day that repeat belligerent fare evasion of the type I am talking about goes hand in hand very often with antisocial behaviour, with intimidation of bus drivers and far too often with the type of violence that the TWU picked up in its survey results. It is often the same cohort of people we are talking about. Certainly, the bus drivers I have spoken to, including former bus drivers like my father, agree that there should be more stringent controls dealing with those types of people who deliberately flout the fare structures.

This bill then does something quite simple, but it is again something that bus drivers, and indeed the police, told me would be a very useful tool in keeping bus drivers safe. The bill makes it very clear that a repeated failure to validate tickets constitutes an offence and that a whole range of people may serve a barring order on a repeat offender, including a bus driver, any number of officials of the Department for Transport and, of course, police officers and police security officers, as they are now. Section 56 of the Passenger Transport Act sets out the general offences you can commit on a bus, train or tram. These are:

throwing or placing an object that might impede the free passage of a vehicle operated for the purposes of a passenger transport service;

interfering with any structure, equipment, sign or notice necessary for the safe operation of a passenger transport service, or otherwise obstructing or impeding the proper operation of a passenger transport service;

damaging or defacing a public passenger vehicle or any structure, equipment, materials, sign or notice used for the purpose of, or in connection with, a passenger transport service;

behaving in a disorderly or offensive manner while in or on a public passenger vehicle; and

refusing to leave a vehicle.

Concurrently, the regulations around public transport barring orders, as currently set out in section 133 of the Passenger Transport Regulations 2009, provide:

(1) Subject to this regulation, a police officer may, on the authorisation of a senior police officer, by order (a transit barring order) served on a person, bar the person from—

(a) boarding or travelling on—

(i) specified classes of public transport; or

(ii) all public transport other than as specified by the order; or

(iii) all public transport; or

(b) entering or remaining on—

(i) specified prescribed premises; or

(ii) specified classes of prescribed premises; or

(iii) all prescribed premises other than as specified by the order; or

(iv) all prescribed premises,

for a specified period not exceeding any applicable limit fixed by this regulation—

(c) if the person commits an offence, or behaves in an offensive or disorderly manner, on public transport or specified prescribed premises, or in an area adjacent to specified prescribed premises; or

(d) on any other reasonable ground.

That sets out the conditions necessary for a police officer, or an authorised officer acting on the behest of a senior police officer, to issue a transit barring order. At the moment, the threshold is fairly high. It needs authorisation from a senior police officer, ultimately, for someone to be served with a transit barring order. Section 101 of the same regulations sets out the offence for failing to validate tickets, as follows:

(1) A person who holds a ticket must validate his or her ticket each time that he or she boards a regular passenger service vehicle in which a ticket validator is installed.

There is a maximum penalty of $1,250 attached to this offence, but it is expiable by an amount $160. Any normal reading of that—and I am not a lawyer, sir, as you may have noticed—

The Hon. A. Piccolo: You're a JP.

Mr ODENWALDER: I am not even a JP, I am sorry. I am not a commissioner of oaths and affidavits or any of those.

The Hon. A. Piccolo: Not a police officer either.

Mr ODENWALDER: I am not a police officer. I am a former breakdancer.

Mr Brown: You never stop being a breakdancer.

Mr ODENWALDER: It is in your soul. I am sorry, I digress, sir.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr ODENWALDER: To a layman, to a former breakdancer's reading of these regulations in conjunction with the act, it would seem that fare evasion constitutes an offence and therefore constitutes grounds for a barring order, yet everyone at this forum—everyone from bus drivers and the union officials who represent them every day to the bus operators' representatives and the senior representatives of the transit police who were present—was adamant that, for the purposes of applying a transit barring order, the failure to validate did not constitute an offence.

That is the starting point. Even if it did constitute an offence, the threshold is still very high. I do not have a problem with the threshold being high, and I will explain further about the provision in my bill that does establish a certain threshold before this can be applied. What bus drivers and bus operators were telling me was that they needed a more flexible system whereby not only should repeated non-validation of tickets constitute an offence, which would give drivers and bus operators a tool to prevent certain types of antisocial behaviour, and in some cases violent behaviour, on their buses and trains, but it should be applicable by bus drivers and by bus operators.

In the good old days, we had bus inspectors. In any case, transport officials should be empowered to impose these types of orders in order to maintain some sort of flexibility and to expedite the process, and in these COVID times perhaps ease the pressure on our senior police officers, who, as we know, are under extraordinary amounts of pressure at the moment. This bill makes it absolutely clear that repeated failure to validate tickets constitutes an offence and that a whole range of people may serve a barring order on a repeat offender.

This bill inserts new section 56A to explicitly deal with transit barring orders related to fare evasion. It applies to a person who expiates a fare evasion offence and has, within the preceding period of 10 years, expiated at least two other fare evasion offences. There is that threshold. It would not be a case of a bus driver being agitated by the behaviour of someone who has failed to validate a ticket and slapping an order on them arbitrarily. There is this set of preconditions.

It would be a person who expiates a fare evasion offence and has, within the preceding period of 10 years, expiated at least two other fare evasion offences; that is, they have not just not paid a certain amount of times but been fined and either paid or not paid that fine—I do not think that matters—but they have been fined three times for that offence, so they have come to the attention of police in the period of 10 years at least three times. Those are the grounds on which a bus driver, an official of the transport department, or a police officer or police security officer may impose such an order under this legislation. The bill states:

(2) Subject to this section, an authorised person may, by order (a transit barring order) served on a person to whom this section applies, bar the person from—

(a) boarding or travelling on—

(i) specified classes of public transport; or

(ii) all public transport other than as specified by the order; or

(iii) all public transport; or

(b) entering or remaining on—

(i) specified prescribed premises; or

(ii) specified classes of prescribed premises; or

(iii) all prescribed premises other than as specified by the order; or

(iv) all prescribed premises,

for a specified period (not exceeding 3 months).

I guess that is another condition of this bill, and another safeguard, that the threshold, the time for which one of these types of transport barring orders can apply, is limited to three months. This gives an offender time to reflect upon his or her actions and then continue to use public transport, as a lot of us still choose to do.

The bill, importantly, defines an authorised officer. It is slightly different from the definition applied elsewhere in the Passenger Transport Regulations 2009. An authorised officer is described as:

(a) an authorised officer under section 53—

as you would expect—

(b) a person authorised by the Minister to exercise the powers of an authorised person under this section; or

(c) an employee of a regular passenger service operator; or

(d) the driver of a regular passenger service vehicle…

The important point, I think, is that it includes drivers for the first time as people who are empowered to deliver and serve these orders on persons they know fulfil the criteria.

This bill requires that a transit barring order under this section must be personally served on the person—it is not binding on that person until it has been so served—and it ensures a person who contravenes a transit barring order issued under this section is guilty of an offence. The penalty for that offence is a maximum of $2,500. Drivers have told me this is a small step but it is a very important one in improving driver safety, and I urge members to support this bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Dr Harvey.