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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-03-01 Daily Xml
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TONSLEY AND GRANGE RAILWAY LINES

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (15:34): I rise today to speak on the new transport lines for the Tonsley and Grange lines. Much has been said in the media recently about announcements of the government that there would be a closure for consumers and users of the rail service known as the Tonsley and Grange lines which come into the city. This is an important service, obviously, for all those who use these train services. Much publicity surrounded, of course, the Grange line consumers when they objected strongly to notice on this, but it was subsequently announced that they would have some extra services in relation to their disruption.

People understand that services will sometimes be interrupted to enable capital upgrades, but they expect that disruption will be minimised and that the government will look at multiple options before cutting a service. The concerns that we have on these two services is that the people concerned, the communities who use these services, whether it is to go to a doctor's appointment or to travel to and from work, all the reasons people use public transport, is that they were given only a few weeks' notice.

The member for Mitchell yesterday, or today, I think tabled nearly the 1,000 petitioner signatures from the Tonsley line in relation to their concerns. Indeed, I met with three committed public transport users of this line a week ago who were very concerned about the closure of this service. They had been offered a bus service. They outlined their concerns about having had buses on previous occasions that were inefficient and ineffective in providing them with service. They read about this announcement in the paper, and obviously they are very concerned.

Will the people who catch the Tonsley line be disrupted in fact for more than one year as promised? Clearly it would make sense to complete electrification works while the track is closed. We know that the government has already previously announced its intention in respect of the electrification works, which, on briefings that I have had with the government's departments, tell us that in fact that will be commenced in 2013.

So we have a situation in reality where, if that is the case, then the people of Tonsley will be facing two years disruption to their service, not the one year as has been published. I think it is important for the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure—if it is clear that the Tonsley commuters are not going to have access to this service over the next year—at the very least to make sure that his department immediately brings forward the electrification works that need to be undertaken to minimise those who use this service.

The other matter I wish to bring to the attention of the parliament is that, as most people would know in South Australia, there was a derailment of the Tonsley train last week. I am told by people who have come to see me that it is not the first time that there has been disruptions, but, in that instance, there was a disruption to their train service for most of the day. It was late in the afternoon before we had an announcement from the government about what on earth was going wrong.

We heard reports that other trains were stopped or slowed prior to the derailment because of switching problems. Later that night I got home and found that there were apparently further problems and that that had been made public. But we have got two ministers now dealing with these issues, dealing with trains, in this state: we have a Minister for Transport and a Minister for Transport Services. We have got two ministers, we have got a huge department, yet, here we are, none of them have come forward to give us any explanation about what happened on that derailment.

The only explanation we have had is via a public servant who was trotted out on the day to give some explanation about the resumption of the service. So more than a week has passed and we still do not have any answer on what happened and some assurance that it will not happen again. What happened with the switching problem that was also referred to later that evening, and, as I understand it, a further signalling problem? We do need to have some answers. The public are entitled to that.

Time expired.

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