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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-12-02 Daily Xml
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ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE: PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Ms BREUER (Giles) (16:18): I move:

That the 65th report of the committee, entitled Public Transport, be noted.

I did not really think that, when I looked at that list, I would ever have this opportunity, so I am pleased that circumstances have worked out the way in which they have. I particularly did want to move this report because we have produced quite a substantial report and it has taken us virtually the whole year, and it would be such a shame if I was not able to comment on it. So, it is good that I am able to get up here today.

In an ideal world, public transport would be available, affordable, safe and clean in the carbon neutral sense. Somehow the domination of the car would not have placed it in catch-up mode and being ill-prepared to face the challenges raised by climate change and peak oil. In a comparison with other states and similar cities worldwide, South Australia has some admirable aspects. A one-sentence summary of where South Australia is at the moment is: South Australia was lagging, but the planned infrastructure spending will bring us in line with other states. However, we will need to consider future scenarios influenced by peak oil and climate change.

The reality is that in Adelaide fewer than 10 per cent of people use public transport to journey to work. The private car dominates. Arguably Adelaide is the most car-dominated city in Australia, but the statistics show that Perth and Canberra are about the same. This should not be surprising. The car has been an easy, relatively inexpensive fast way to get to where you want to be. An extensive road network is provided for car users. Public transport is used by two groups: those going to the CBD (about 43 per cent of all public transport trips are CBD-bound journeys); and 50 per cent of the population who do not have access to a private vehicle—these are people who are old, young or who cannot afford to run a car.

Public transport for many historic reasons has provided services that radiate out from Adelaide. This does not effectively serve travellers' needs, and a chicken and egg situation arises. Suburban centres that are designed to accommodate cars arise and these are difficult to serve by public transport. It is recognised that there must be a shift to public transport as the current use of private cars is unsustainable. The environmental and economic consequences are well known. Recent history shows successive state and local governments making considerable progress and improving Adelaide's public transport—integrating the fare and ticketing systems, the O-Bahn to the north-east suburbs, extending rail to Noarlunga, providing an interchange and creating community bus works, to name a few.

The integration of state and private services through the establishment of the State Transport Authority (now the Passenger Transport Board) and the Public Transport Division has been very positive. Compared to other states, funding for capital works for public transport was low. The committee's visit to Perth—a city comparable in size to Adelaide—demonstrated the vast improvements that capital funding provides. However, this situation has now changed for the better. The current state government now has a program of works to improve major elements of Adelaide's public transport system, including the following rail infrastructure projects:

resleepering the Noarlunga and Belair lines;

constructing a tramline overpass at South Road;

electrifying the Noarlunga and Outer Harbor lines;

extending the tramline to the Entertainment Centre; and

extending the Noarlunga line to Seaford.

For these and other projects, including replacement buses and improved access for O-Bahn buses into the city, the state government expects to invest some $2 billion over the period 2008-18, with some financial assistance from federal government programs. The initial thrust is on rebuilding the rail and tram infrastructure, but improvements to other services are expected to take place concurrently. A key recommendation of the committee is that the government produce a strategic transport plan. This would set the new program of public transport improvements (the costs involved and the budgets required) into a strategic framework, provide a guideline for the medium-term future and form a platform on which longer-term plans can be developed.

It would demonstrate that South Australia was adopting an integrated, intermodal, best practice approach to transport planning and management and planning for long-term change. These were the findings of the recent published report from the Senate Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport. A new draft plan could be prepared quickly and released for public consultation by updating the 2003 Draft Transport Plan for South Australia.

If existing resources cannot be spared to prepare such a plan, consideration should be given to a future Thinker in Residence being invited from interstate or overseas to complete the task. The current South Australian Strategic Plan target to improve Adelaide's public transport patronage to 10 per cent of passenger kilometres by 2018 should be increased to a more aspirational 25 per cent. The targets for public transport travel in the Adelaide CBD should be raised to 50 per cent of trips by 2018.

The committee realises that improved public transport is only one element of reducing private car use. Planning, such as transit orientated developments (TODs), taxes on car use, encouraging cycling and walking and education campaigns, should all be part of the approach. It is important to raise the general standard of services in all the following areas if public transport is to be an attractive alternative to the private car.

Those areas are: frequent services; reliable services; bus priority measures; realistic operating timetables; accurate and comprehensive public timetables; convenient and pleasant interchanges; convenient access to vehicles, stops, interchanges and platforms; maintaining low fare levels; Smartcard integrated ticketing; overall comfort and security; and capacity for shopping, schoolbags and luggage.

The Smart Stop real-time information system needs improvement and then should be rolled out to all major bus, tram and rail stops. The Crouzet ticketing system should be replaced with the Smartcard system with a high priority. Another key recommendation centres on funding. The committee identified that the greatest impediment to maintaining such a program of improvements was the availability of finance.

The capital budget has been increased greatly in recent years, but there has not been a corresponding increase in the operating budget to cover the contracts between the state government and its rail and tram operating agency, TransAdelaide, and the private contractors providing bus services; to the contrary, the main effort in the last decade or more has been to maintain the operating budget or make savings.

Given the expansion of the rail and tram systems, additional funds will be required to cover increased operating costs. If the overall budget for service contracts is limited to current levels, savings will have to be made elsewhere in the present system, which would negate the effectiveness of the capital works program.

It would be folly to cut bus services to fund increased rail operating costs, as improvements to the total network are as important as action on particular corridors. Such cross-subsidisation would also be economically inefficient, as the cost recovery on rail services from fares is much lower than that on the bus network, and buses carry far more travellers than the rail system.

The terms of reference included the consideration of restoring certain rail passenger services, and the member for Schubert was most interested in this aspect of our inquiry. The committee is firmly of the view that the future, as impacted by peak oil and climate change, will include public transport to the areas reviewed.

The committee's research concludes that the restoration of passenger train service to near metropolitan areas is unlikely to occur in the immediate future for a number of reasons. The committee therefore recommends:

continued reservation of rail rights of way that are currently unused by rail services;

a short eastward extension of the Gawler rail service to the planned Concordia/Buckland Park development and construction of a secure park-and-ride facility at the new terminal;

extensions of rail networks and stations preceding urban expansion/development;

review of the potential for restoring passenger trains to Mount Barker if and when the all or most freight trains are removed from the Adelaide Hills line to operate via a new freight bypass rail line; and

a study to determine whether the improvements to public transport services in the eastern suburbs of the City of Onkaparinga would benefit from the use of their Willunga rail right of way through the area.

Although restoring regional rail passenger services to Whyalla and Broken Hill is possible (both cities and Port Augusta are on the ARTC standard gauge network), such services are unlikely to be needed or justified in the near future. Consideration of reopening a passenger train service to Mount Gambier must await any action to standardise and reopen the currently unused to broad gauge freight line from Wolseley.

The state government and member companies of the Bus SA organisation should review the level of service to near metropolitan communities and regional cities and develop measures to raise the quality and image of coach services to offset the view presented to the committee that improved public transport can only be achieved by reintroducing passenger train services.

Moving forward, there will need to be more consultation across the spectrum, from producing a strategic plan to making changes to bus routes. The committee has made several recommendations regarding consultation, including a research partnership between DTEI, local governments and local communities. This would be useful in identifying and addressing safety, from assault on traffic, and amenity issues in the areas around stops and stations. It is hoped that this report will be of use to the parliament and benefit the government in setting its policy for the future. The report contains research and analysis that will serve many of the stakeholders in public transport.

I particularly thank the research team we engaged to assist in this report for the work it did. The team comprised Professor Derek Scrafton, Professor Michael Taylor and Dr Nicholas Holyoak from the Institute for Sustainable Systems and Technologies at UniSA. We certainly appreciate and acknowledge their invaluable work in preparing the background report and putting together this information for us because the committee, with its terms of reference, had a monstrous task had before us, and the research team certainly helped us to get through it.

I also thank the other members of the committee for their role, particularly the member for Schubert and his strong advocacy for his region which he maintained throughout the whole project. I also thank our Executive Officer, Phil Frensham, for his role. I recommend the report to the house.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (16:30): I want to commend the member who just sat down on her chairmanship and on a great report. This is the last day of a long journey (pardon the pun) in relation to this issue of transport. I remind the house that this matter originally came to this house by way of a motion from me, which was amended by the government and accepted. It was picked up in the upper house by the Hon. Dennis Hood and the words that I had to leave out to get it through this house were reinserted. So, in partnership, we got it to the ERD Committee.

This has been a very interesting reference, particularly with the three participants from the Adelaide University, which has given it great expanse. We have looked at a very wide field, and a lot of things came into it. This is one of the best documents that I believe any committee has ever handed down, so much so that I will be keeping my copy, because there is so much information in here that has come from the university's memory bank and the pictures are in colour. It is a must for anybody who is at all interested in the future of transport, transport options and people. I think it is fantastic reading. It also quotes what other countries around the world are doing.

Although Adelaide has missed the tram (pardon the pun again) on a lot of these things, we can capitalise and we can now use the most modern and latest technology. I attended a forum this morning at an adjoining hotel which talked about work and life, and one of the key topics was how people are suffering because they are spending too much time travelling to work and not enough time with their family, and public transport has a key role to play. This reference has crossed over a very wide gamut of the whole community here in the state.

As the member for Giles just said, I battled hard, and I commend the people from the Barossa who came and made a presentation to the committee. They did so in force, purely because they are unhappy that they have a railway line but they do not have a daily passenger service or even a wine train. I did not ginger them up to do that; they did that of their own volition. They did not need any help from me to do that.

As I said, the Barossa community to a person is very supportive of their getting a rail option. The bottom line is that, if we cannot have a train service (and it is highlighted in this report), why can we not be provided with buses that link the Barossa to Gawler? When looking at the report it is rather ironical to see (and the figures are there for all to see) that the Gawler-Adelaide line is the line that makes the most. It almost makes a profit—not quite, but it nearly does. It is the long haul lines that are efficient.

Why cannot the government tack on a bus service linking that rail service from Gawler into the Barossa, or wherever? Buses could go out from these rail heads: it is not rocket science. Put buses on that link to the rail head and match the train timetables, so people can get on the bus, de-bus at Gawler and get on the train. Without doubt, the Gawler train is the best way to travel to Adelaide. There is no car parking problem and it is quick, especially the express service, which comes straight through. My staff use it every day. It is fantastic.

The other part to that, which is also highlighted in the report, is why the Metroticket cannot be extended to include people such as this? A lot of people are paying $17 or $18 just to get from the Barossa to Gawler, and then it is $3 or $4 thereafter for the rest of the day. When they draw that line there, it really excludes a lot of people.

I note that the report (and, again, it is spelt out) talks about the subsidisation of services. On page 36 it talks about what it costs; how much the government subsidises the services that we currently operate in metropolitan Adelaide. That subsidy is about $175 for each person who gets on the train, yet when we are talking about a service for country South Australia by way of the reintroduction of, say, the Port Pirie or the Port Augusta express to Adelaide, or even Adelaide Hills or Mount Gambier one day, I hope (that is a pipedream maybe), we are told by the minister that these services do not pay. That is right: they do not, and they never will. However, if it is okay to have a subsidy in the city, why can't we have any sort of a subsidy for the country?

This is not spelt out; this has not been worked out. I have said to the government ad nauseam 'Why can't we at least trial it?' Why can't we trial it to see who is using it and what it would cost? I am happy to say that if the subsidy costs $200 or $300 per person, squash it; I am okay with that.

I am sad that Mr John Geber was not able to present to the committee. He would like to do so now but it is a bit late, I'm afraid. I was talking to him about this matter last Friday. Mr John Geber who owns Chateau Tanunda has bought the wine train outright. He now owns the old Bluebird, but he still cannot operate it on the line. I cannot understand why the government cannot come in. I understand that Genesee & Wyoming, which now operates that corridor for the stone train, is amicable to a deal down the track—pardon the pun—so Mr Geber can run his train, but we do not seem to have a government with a 'can do' mentality. I am sure when former minister Di Laidlaw was in charge she had more than a 'can do' mentality: it was a 'will do' mentality—it happened, it ran.

If it were not for September 11 and SARS, and everything else, it would still be there. Because of one glitch and the wrong government, look what we have got. We have no service at all. I would have liked to see cross-subsidisation expanded in this report. It is written here for everyone to read. I commend the government for allowing this document to be noted because it is here for people to read. Again, I commend the people from the Barossa for coming down. I would not give up on this, because here it is in black and white. The professors have used the auspices, capacity and research library of the University of South Australia to put all this information together.

I commend the report to the parliament. I also commend the chair, all members of the committee and our research officer Phil Frensham. We get on well together. We have a lot of experience on this committee. I am a bit sad that we do not have a full-time research officer on this committee. It is a mistake. I do not know whether or not it is the clerk's experiment, but I put on the record that in the next parliament I would like to see a full-time research officer on deck all the time. It is very hard on one person. He has to be in control. When there are two people, there is always someone there to take a phone call from demanding committee members—and some of us are very demanding. I make no excuse for that, particularly in relation to reports such as this.

During my time in this place—and I hope I am coming back after the election—I have enjoyed my work on this committee. I had the honour of chairing the committee for seven years. It is one of the most interesting committees in the parliament, and it is a fairly powerful committee. It would be common sense to put all these committees on the same level. I do not believe it is correct that members of the Public Works Committee are paid less than, say, members of the Economic and Finance Committee or the ERD Committee. It is wrong to have two layers. All committees should be the same, so there is not a differentiation in relation to seniority.

I commend this report to the house. It is excellent reading. I thank again the three members from the university. It is great that the outreach of the parliament went down there. The input from Professor Scrafton and his colleagues was well worthwhile. We hope that we have not vandalised the report too much. I certainly commend the report to the house.

Motion carried.

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