Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) (Miscellaneous No 2) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 9 June 2016.)

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (16:51): I rise on behalf of the opposition to speak, reasonably briefly, to the Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) (Miscellaneous No. 2) Amendment Bill 2016. Obviously, this bill has passed through the other place with support from the two major parties and of course the two Independents, I presume, who are lurking on government benches as ministers. My indication is that the opposition will of course be supporting the bill here, and I will be making some very brief comments.

It is my understanding that the genesis of the bill was in 2009 at the Council of Australian Governments meeting, at which COAG agreed to implement the national rail safety reform that created a single rail safety regulator and to develop a rail safety national law which a rail regulator would administer. I recall that I had carriage of that bill when it went through this place, probably eight years ago.

The Rail Safety National Law commenced operation on 20 January 2013. The Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator was established as a body corporate under the law, and its scope is now being enacted in all jurisdictions with the exception of Queensland, although it is my understanding that the Queensland government has recently committed to adopting the law.

I note that the amendment bill before the house was approved by the Transport and Infrastructure Council in November last year and that South Australia has a prominent role to play in the enactment of this bill. We are what they call the host jurisdiction. South Australia is responsible for passing any amendments, and once the law has commenced in South Australia, other jurisdictions will have the application act to automatically adopt the law and subsequent amendments to its own legislation. We are, if you like, the lead legislator.

I understand that the bill is primarily administrative and seeks to improve the operation of the Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) Act. This will be achieved in part by clarifying issues around infringement penalties and court imposed penalties so that they can be paid into the regulator's fund. In addition, it will maintain currency with relevant national systems for the delivery and assessment of competencies relevant to rail safety workers and provide flexibility to recognise those different systems if changes are made in the future. There are also a couple of amendments around safety regarding site visits for compliance and investigative purposes, requiring a third party to notify a rail infrastructure manager when conducting work that may threaten the safety or integrity of the railway.

I did note that when the bill passed the other chamber, my colleague the member for Chaffey made a few remarks around something we find interesting, that is the demise of rail in South Australia. As members would know, the opposition recently had a joint shadow cabinet meeting with our colleagues in Victoria. A little bit of time was spent in Renmark, and a little bit of time was spent in Mildura. Of course, Mildura has a daily train service into that part of Victoria, which is some five hours' drive—400 and something road kilometres. That is quite a lengthy distance, but it is interesting to note that the Victorian government chose fit to invest.

I know that it is always a difficult decision. It is freight and transport. We probably do not have the population centres to deal with it, and then of course we have the issue of the Adelaide Hills and the capacity, or the lack of capacity, to double stack containers through the tunnels, so that that part of our national rail network, if you like, almost compromises the rest of the national rail network. I think there are only one or two bridges or crossings in Victoria where they cannot double stack, and they are soon to be fixed.

It will put some pressure on this state to look at how we deal with the Adelaide Hills. Obviously there has always been a whole range of issues around noise for the residents, of wheel squealing. Also, when it comes to an efficient, modern rail network, I think everybody understands we could not have a railway line to every little country town, but we are on the national rail network, and that will present some challenges for whoever is to look at it, whether it is to make those tunnels higher, to take the double-stacked containers or whether it is, as has been proposed in the past, to have a bypass around the back of the Hills.

I know that has been looked upon as being very expensive and maybe it is one of those things that we might be able to look at in the future, but clearly I think the pressure will be put on South Australia once you can double stack containers all the way to Melbourne, and of course once we get through the Adelaide Hills, all the way to Western Australia, and all the way to Darwin. So it will put pressure on us in South Australia to work out how we are still going to be an important part of that national rail network.

Also, we have seen over the last few years rail lines—and I think the Mallee line is the most recent one—closed to grain traffic and all of that will go on road. Clearly in a modern sense, it is probably cheaper and more efficient to put it on road, but it does put more trucks on the road. I have had meetings with minister Mulligan about the actual wear and tear on the roads, and there is an increased safety risk to users of the road just by virtue of the fact there are probably in some years 200,000 to 400,000 extra tonnes of traffic coming down that particular highway. It will continue to present problems. We cannot afford to keep the rail open, we cannot afford to maintain it, we cannot afford to upgrade it, yet of course then the road network has to take the burden.

I am reminded too of the Eyre Peninsula rail network, where, I think it was in the time of minister Conlon, there was a combination of funding, but some of it was through a grower levy. It did seem a little short-sighted that at that time we did not use either gauge convertible sleepers or even convert the gauge to be the standard gauge so that we could actually link it into the rest of the rail network. So we have this little pocket, actually it is quite large because, in some years, Eyre Peninsula produces as much grain as the rest of the state, yet it has a rail system that is crumbling. In my time in parliament we have had money from state government and growers—I do not recall whether there was any federal government money, there may have been—and certainly a program to upgrade that, yet we still have speed restrictions and there are all sorts of discussions about its viability.

It does seem like an eternity, although I know I have not been here that long, but in the last decade of my 14 years in parliament we had a program to upgrade that, yet we constantly hear that that is the next part of the state network that will be under pressure. The Mallee has gone, all the other lines have gone, and that will be the next one that is under pressure. It will be interesting to see how we as a state address that. Eyre Peninsula grows a couple of million tonnes of grain in the good years, so to take all of that off rail and put it on road will present a number of challenges as well.

I close with the comments about my hometown of Wolseley, which of course was the branch line to Mount Gambier, down to the Hon. Kyam Maher's home, where his parents live, and that line was closed in the late 1990s, I think. There was money put aside to reopen it. I think there is $10 million in a fund somewhere that has been set aside to reopen it. That will never happen. I am not sure what will happen to the $10 million, but there are red gums about 40 feet high right in the middle of that railway line now, so it will take more than $10 million to bring that back to life, and again there probably is not the population density, and of course we have the issue with the Adelaide Hills.

I used to catch the Bluebird to Adelaide with my mother and my grandmother, as a very young boy, and it would whiz along at a 100 km/h until you got outside Mount Barker. You got there in just over a couple of hours and then you would have two hours to get through the Hills. That just made it unviable. I think there may be some opportunities, if we ever bypass the Hills, to look at whether we can get some of those services going again. It may never be viable. Certainly we would need way more than the $10 million that was set aside to bring that particular line back to life.

Maybe there is some other use for that rail corridor in the future, rather than just leaving it as an old deserted railway line, with trees growing out of it. Maybe we should, as a state, bite the bullet and use that corridor for something else. Anyway, that is a debate for another day. With those few comments, I indicate that the opposition will be supporting the bill.

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (17:00): I thank members for their contributions thus far, and look forward to dealing with the bill in the committee stage.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

Bill taken through committee without amendment.

Third Reading

The Hon. P. MALINAUSKAS (Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (17:02): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.