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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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RAIL SAFETY NATIONAL LAW (SOUTH AUSTRALIA) BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 14 March 2012.)

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg) (11:04): I rise to speak on the Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) Bill 2012 which was introduced with second reading by the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure on 14 March this year. Essentially this is a bill to repeal the Rail Safety Act 2007 which is our state legislation providing for the appointment of a rail regulator. That rail safety regulator reports through the minister to this parliament each year. Their job is to provide a structure to accredit and regulate rail operators, including drug and alcohol testing and auditing of rail operations. I will refer to their powers and responsibilities a little later. In essence, it is a regulated area of industry, and this bill is to repeal our state act and to be the lead agency as a jurisdiction in introducing a national regulator. If this bill is passed and followed in other jurisdictions, a national regulator will be appointed and individual state regulators will no longer be required. That position, as I understand it, is to have its headquarters in Adelaide.

Safety regulator law and regulations are yet to come in with respect to heavy transport, that is, largely trucks, and in the commercial marine area. I had the opportunity to view the host legislation that was presented in Queensland in relation to heavy transport; its passage was essentially aborted due to the Queensland election, but that state is to be the host in respect of that area of regulation. From speaking with the new Minister for Transport in Queensland, I understand that they will attend to that early in their new government and there will be legislation to follow here.

To return to this legislation to nationalise or establish a national regulator for rail safety operators, and to outline the position as I understand it, the minister's contribution outlined the history of rail in this country and more specifically in South Australia and that there had been a number of discussions at the Council of Australian Governments level from the mid-2000s to consider introducing model legislation in each of the state jurisdictions to deal with the regulation of the industry, and that took place. Indeed, we dealt with that model legislation in 2006 which culminated in the act we are about to repeal, namely, the Rail Safety Act 2007; other jurisdictions followed that and introduced the model legislation.

That whole process was apparently to provide the consistency and uniformity that both industry and the advisers in government were attempting to produce. I am told (and I have no reason to think otherwise) that the model legislation in South Australia has worked quite well over the last five or six years. We in the parliament have the benefit of receiving the rail safety regulator's report each year, which is a report required by law to be presented to the Minister for Transport and he or she in turn will table that here in the parliament. That is our way in parliament of having some understanding of what the regulator is doing. I will refer to that report shortly, but in essence it gives us a snapshot of the work that is undertaken.

The introduction mid last month did at least facilitate an opportunity for, and I was offered and accepted, a briefing from Ms Julie Bullas, who is the project director undertaking the development of the new national structure, and I place on record my appreciation for her making time to do so. Other representatives from the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure have also made themselves available. Mr Pat Gerace from the minister's office also provided information subsequent to that meeting, and I place on the record my appreciation for that.

In addition, this legislation being held to this week, though listed last week, has given me the opportunity to meet with a representative from the Australasian Railway Association Inc., and their representative from Canberra attended to provide me with a briefing as to the industry's position. It is fair to say that they support the creation of a national rail safety regulator and a national rail safety investigator. They note that that will be headquartered in Adelaide. They have made a number of submissions on other matters relating to their industry, but on this issue they are hopeful that it will work. I qualify that because there is a question of cost, which remains yet unclear and of which I am advised in the briefings there is to be further meetings between ministers across the country in May this year to, I think, come to some landing in relation to cost.

The current position under the Rail Safety Act 2007 is that the State Regulator, who is currently, I think, Mr Brian Hemming, and his office, undertake a number of things to provide the accreditation and regulation of the rail operators, as I have indicated. According to the 30 June 2011 annual report, which was tabled late last year, there are nearly 50 regulated operators in South Australia. They are largely private companies and, once accredited, are scheduled in the annual report of the Rail Safety Regulator.

Only one of those that I can identify is government owned in South Australia, and that is under the responsibility of the Rail Commissioner. The Rail Commissioner, I think, at this stage is Mr Rod Hook, the Chief Executive of the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure, and he is the person who has direct responsibility also to the minister and provides reports to this parliament. I simply mention that role because this regulation, as it currently stands, regulates all rail transport operators, whether they are government or private organisations, and the overwhelming majority are private, some limited liability companies and some national public companies, which provide these services. I will not repeat the history of how that has come about, but essentially rail, to a large degree, was privatised some decades ago.

The opposition supports the principle of having regulation in safety particularly, but of the industry, because it does provide a very significant public transport and commercial purpose, but the operation of the rail equipment, whether the trains themselves, the track, the rolling stock or any of the activity that is related to the moving of freight or people, requires a high standard of safety. We support the principle of having a regulated industry to do that.

On the face of it, that is an attempt to ensure that only people who are fit and proper, and who follow the process of the standards that are imposed, have the right to operate businesses for which safety is a very key component—not just for consumers and the public, but of course for those people who are employed in the provision of rail services. The 2011 annual report provides that:

South Australia has 4,730 route kilometres of rail track, on which an aggregate total of 17,590,448 kilometres were travelled by trains during the 2010-11 financial year.

As I have indicated, the opposition supports that the industry is regulated and that we have an accreditation process in place. Essentially, it means that rail transport operators are not permitted to carry out railway operations unless an appropriate accreditation or an exemption from accreditation is held, or, indeed, the railway operations are being undertaken on behalf of an operator that is accredited or exempt. The act is applicable to any railway operations undertaken on a railway track, having a gauge of 600 millimetres or greater.

The rail transport operators, through this process, pay an annual fee. The accreditation process is designed such that the cost is met by those who are seeking the application—that is, the user-pays system. Therefore, the annual fee revenue directly is to be offset by the cost of the rail safety regulation activities undertaken by the regulator. In the last year, according to the 2010-11 annual report, the total revenue provided $1,436,016.

At present, the minimum annual fee is $13,941, as gazetted on 17 June 2011. Members will see that, in the categories of Transport—Rail Transport Operator that are scheduled, some would only have to pay close to the minimal fees; however, a number of these companies operate across jurisdictions, and they pay an extra charge—I think in each of the jurisdictions, but certainly here—based on the size of operation, either in the kilometres of track that they own or operate or the areas that they cover.

Large companies like Genesee & Wyoming Australia Pty Ltd, which not only operates in this state, but also in other jurisdictions, pay a fee of close to $300,000 a year, I think, because they are at the other end of the scale. They, of course, have to register and be regulated and accredited in each of the other states and territories, so no doubt that is quite a heavy cost for the bigger companies but, in any event, the opposition does not take issue with there being a graduated scale. The new bill will adopt a similar cost recovery requirement, and also on a graduated basis.

The position for South Australia as to how this is operated under the current Rail Safety Act 2007 is one which has been applauded by some who have spoken to me and to members of the opposition, which raises the question of why we would change it. The claims of efficiency or uniformity are ones that come from the industry and, indeed, the Australian Railways Association has told me that it has been seeking a national regulator model back as far as 2004.

It seems that COAG listened to it to the extent of providing model legislation around the country, which is the sort of 2006 regime that has been implemented. Incidentally, Western Australia, I am told, had not come in under that scheme until last year, so I suppose it is a little early to judge how effective its systems are going to be seeing that it was only just implemented and now, of course, it is about to be thrust into a federal regulator system; but, knowing Western Australia, it is likely to be tardy in its even coming on board for this one—if it ever does at all.

Nevertheless, it has become clear that, although South Australia has operated quite efficiently (and I think there has been something like a 90 per cent recovery of cost in the whole regulatory process), there has certainly been a significant broadening of the functions of the regulator under the new bill, and that may really lead to the reason that this is being pushed so heavily.

Quite possibly the other reason is one which I float, that is, having now had the opportunity to examine the extended functions the national regulator will undertake, this government, and possibly others around the country, has seen that the national occupational health and safety legislation—which has come to a shuddering halt in its implementation under a national model—is one which is probably very embarrassing to the Australian Labor Party but, nevertheless, is one which certainly in South Australia has been fought hard and strongly opposed; and from what I read in the national newspapers Queensland will probably follow suit.

The future of that legislation may well be that it turns to dust. Nevertheless, this legislation with the expansion of roles will adopt some quite significant areas of enforcement, including the codification of duties and various significant offences for breach of those duties which, if the Labor governments cannot achieve under the safe work/occupational health and safety legislation (which has various names) reform, then there would be good reason why they would be in a hurry to push this through, because it may be the only way that they will attempt to get it.

Nevertheless, it comes with the support of the industry because, for a number of years, it has been desperately crying out for a system which is at least not just uniform but which adds to some consistency in the application of what the standards are that they are expected to comply with; whether they are an operator or a rolling stock owner, for example, they need to know what the rules are and they want some consistency. This space is now filled with national operators, and they are keen to have that remedied.

I think that, as I mentioned, Western Australia is a little different—always has been—but, nevertheless, just like its heavy transport industry, it has a very significant part of its infrastructure in the rail and heavy transport area within its own state. They, not surprisingly, say that often they can do it on their own.

The presentation in the briefing to me that there is a need to have a common approach to the prescription of drug and alcohol requirements and fatigue management is quite a reasonable submission to make, and I agree some consistency is helpful. Is it important? Is it a prerequisite? Probably not, but it is apparently evident in other jurisdictions that they have not been as effective in managing these areas and therefore we need to come into the national system to bring others up to standard.

That may be the case. I hope South Australia has been successful in this area. I would have to say that on reading the material from the rail safety regulators' annual report it does seem that whatever we are doing is pretty good. The safety levels are identified in the audit program, which is fairly comprehensive; that is, once rail operators have been accredited they are regularly audited and there is quite a significant supervision of that, which I am pleased to see.

Under the rail safety occurrences that were provided in last year's annual report (the 2010-11 year), the notifiable occurrences included 13 running line derailments; five running line collisions with trains, rolling stock, a person, infrastructure or road vehicles; one level crossing collision, which was with a road vehicle; 68 signal passed at danger, where there was human error or technical error; 124 loading irregularities; and 129 track and civil irregularities.

There are processes by which certain events have to be reported to the national Australian Transport Safety Bureau, and they retain quite significant data. The regulator also provides statistical data on the fatalities to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau for publication on its website. I did note that, over the period from 2001 to 2011 inclusive, the number of rail fatalities in South Australia was 24. Rarely has it been as high as four in one year; commonly it has been one or two, and I am pleased to see that in a number of years there were none at all.

What does concern me relates to, I think, a very serious issue facing the rail transport industry and drivers of trains in particular. There is no data provided to the parliament on the fatalities that are suspected suicides. It seems from other material that I have been provided with that we have something like 250 fatalities or very serious injuries a year in Australia where the victim is a suspected suicide case.

I was interested to note that the Australasian Railway Association has recently launched a program called trackSAFE. It was launched in Sydney last week. I think, from memory, the junior minister, minister Fox, had leave from the parliament to attend such a launch. I am sure that it is a worthy program from the information I have read on it, and I am pleased that the government was represented at that launch in Sydney—if that is the one that she attended.

In any event, one of the things that has become clear in the information that has been provided by the industry body itself is the issue of suicide on rail networks. From the rail industry perspective, this is up there with one of the most alarming issues, and they are looking to have some coordinated approach to it.

If we are going to get serious about addressing this issue, members should be aware that trains cannot stop quickly, as quickly as cars, for example. There is a risk of causing injury if they are about to have a collision at a level crossing, or about to traverse a track over which someone has attempted to pass or, worse still, where a person considers that it will be their act of suicide, as the train cannot pull up quickly.

From the information that I am provided with, travelling at 60 km/h a car could stop within 58 metres, a heavy vehicle would take about 97 metres, a suburban passenger train, however, would take 200 metres to stop, and a freight train takes as much as 800 metres to stop. I think all members can appreciate that this means that the risks at level crossings, such as trespassing onto tracks, will have a profound impact.

Tragically, those who are in control of those trains, particularly the drivers, do suffer considerable mental and emotional trauma as a result of witnessing such incidents. That has an impact not only on them personally, which is serious enough, but also on their capacity to continue in their line of work and exercise their skills as drivers, for example. Even for those who are working on the tracks and need to remedy the breach, or those who attend the scene of a shocking accident, it is hardly surprising that their exodus from the workforce and their loss to the industry is significant, not to mention what they might have to do to retrain and take on other employment.

I am very pleased that the association has undertaken this work. We need to know, here in the parliament, through the annual regulator's report that sort of information in the report of material. It is going national and I do not care whether it is a national or state regulator. I would ask the minister to take that on notice as it is clearly something we need to deal with.

If the data that we are receiving is correct, on some parity we would have 10 or 12 people a year, at least, in South Australia who die as a result of a suspected suicide or who have serious injury, where a train is involved. I know that the opposition comprises a number of members of parliament who represent vast areas of South Australia where trains are very important, not just for freight but also for some passenger services, and they understand the importance of this. Tragically, sometimes in quite isolated communities they need to deal with these issues as victims are often known.

For example, the reason this would help us work out some charter of how we manage rail safety in the future, for example, by infrastructure measures, such as barriers or the like, is to identify in areas of the state (whether it is main railway stations and sidings at Ceduna, or some other outpost) what is happening out there so that we can address this as a parliament, and obviously governments can take up the responsibility in the financial planning and infrastructure. Also, where it is successful, consistent with the new functions of the national regulator, that it would be the case that he or she will transfer that information to other jurisdictions so that they might also address this very serious social problem.

The other matter I want to mention is within the determination of the Minister for Transport, and that is the setting of the annual fee for the application for accreditation. That is gazetted, and I have referred to the last gazetted fee provision. This is important because they are not only very signification fees that are being paid but, while the industry accepts that it has a user-pay principle (and it is something that predates even the 2007 legislation but we are entrenching in this legislation the obligation for the industry to pay for this), the industry, in my view, is entitled to have some assurance that it will be charged what is a reasonable rate to implement this program.

At present, as I understand it, the Productivity Commission has been requested to keep an eye on and have a watching brief over the implementation of the national law and the appointment of the regulator (in particular, whether that translates into any significant extra cost for the industry) and that that be assessed, bearing in mind two things: one is that there is to be, apparently, no loss of jobs under this new restriction.

We will have the appointment of the national regulator. I am not sure what has happened to the other regulators, but I think it is fair to say that, if it operates like South Australia, the people who are the national regulators sometimes have other areas of responsibility in the transport world, and they may well take on other duties so that there is no overall loss of jobs. Presumably, there will be some advertising process for the selection and appointment of the national regulator and that he or she will have an office here in Adelaide, with some staff, but no-one is to lose their job under this new proposal. One wonders how the question of efficiency is met if there have been promises of a more streamlined model because it is going to be better, more uniformed and more effective and so forth.

This is not a new thing that has come to this parliament. In the 10 years I have been in this place, on many occasions, as members of parliament, we have been asked to support and endorse the transfer of a regulatory role to the appointment of a national bureaucrat. I personally have rarely agreed to it as something that will produce something that is more efficient because it never does and, in fact, I have been right. When we look at medical professional regulation and we look at the cost of implementing these programs, they are never cheaper. I have absolutely no doubt that this model will be exactly the same. That does not mean necessarily that that is a bad thing in itself if, in fact, the new model is going to be more effective and, as in this case, it will have extra areas of responsibility, which will obviously need to be costed. But I make the point that it is not sufficient for the government to simply present an argument that something is going to be more efficient or, indeed, that no marginal cost will be transferred to the industry when it has never been achieved to date.

Also, in this instance, I am advised that the ministers are yet to meet to consider the direct cost to the industry under the new model; that is to occur in May. I am disappointed that this legislation is actually being dealt with before that resolution has been reached and that information is available to the parliament for us to consider, but, in any event, I do not have any confidence that it will be cheaper. On inquiry, the minister's office has provided an indication as follows:

The base cost of ongoing operation of the National Rail Safety Regulator (NRSR) will be the same as the current overall national cost of rail safety regulation with the exception of any new or additional functions that will be undertaken by the NRSR due to a change in regulatory policy.

At this time the only change identified is the proposal for the NRSR to implement a compliance based drug and alcohol testing program, the costs of this activity is being considered by ministers and may be an increase in total national cost in the order of 4% - 8%.

The set-up and implementation costs of the NRSR are largely being met by the Commonwealth (with jurisdictions providing in-kind contribution through participation in various advisory, workgroup and project governance forums).

That does not fill me with confidence about cost. Attempts to suggest that something is not as bad as it might be on the basis that some other government agency is going to pay for it are almost laughable because, of course, we are all taxpayers and we are all paying for it. It does not matter whether it is going to come out of some bucket of money in the commonwealth or some bucket of money at the state. Clearly, these are significant costs.

I now move to the issue of drug and alcohol testing. That, along with fatigue management, is one of the significant areas of policy reform. As I understand it, whilst a much tighter regime is to be implemented under the national scheme—and we will tease out some of that during the course of committee—what is apparently clear is that the undertaking of the auditing and supervision of that will still be done by officers in each of the jurisdictions. This is where we get this consequence that there will be no loss of jobs. Everyone will keep their job.

I will say just on costs that, if there is to be a slow introduction of efficiencies over a period of time and there is to be any employment loss, the minister needs to come clean on that. In response, he can confirm whether there is going to be a slow attrition of those workers in this area of regulation over time, that is, upon retirement, or any forced redundancy. I think, in fairness, we should know about that and how long this sort of no loss of job policy is to be effected.

I come back to the issue of drug and alcohol testing. One of the obligations of an operator who is seeking accreditation is to set out the standards and demonstrate, I suppose, to the regulator, both initially and during any audit, that they are undertaking this responsibility to keep their ticket to operate, so to speak. For example, the regulator has to be satisfied that any rail safety worker, whether they are a driver or someone working on signalling or the like, is fit and healthy and not under the influence of any drug or alcohol. For example, they are not to have a prescribed concentration of alcohol in their blood of over .02 per cent.

Under this national legislation, I understand that is to move to zero, so rail safety operators or workers will, in fact, be a bit like pilots in the air transport industry, where there is to be a zero reading (no alcohol) to avoid any consequences. What I was told during the course of a briefing on this was that our regulator required the operators to have their workers submit to testing. Of those tested, I am advised that there have been, in the last 15 or so years—from 1996 to December 2011—149 reports of positive drug or alcohol tests recorded. There was an indication that the total number of tests undertaken on rail transport operators over that period had not been recorded.

In an oral briefing, I received an indication that those who had returned positive results was approximately 0.17 per cent of all those tested. To calculate that, I am assuming that there had to have actually been some data recorded of the number of transport officers tested, but perhaps they had another way of calculating it. In any event, it is a very small number, and I think that is a good thing on the basis that we have responsible people in the industry and we have a good regulatory process which is under the supervision of the current rail safety regulator. If all the boxes are ticked in that regard, then we are doing okay.

What concerned me, and remains of concern to me, is that of those 149 reports of positive drug and/or alcohol tests, none of them have been reported to the police. When I heard that I was most concerned. Probably some people would say, 'Well, this is an accreditation process in which we are making a determination on whether an operator should be able to carry out their particular business. We're not in the business of prosecution. That's not our job.' If that is the response, it would be rather curious, given that we are about to pass a regime of national regulation which provides for penalties for breach of a safety duty, as defined under the new law, of up to 5 years' imprisonment and, I think, $3 million for corporate breaches.

We have a very serious approach in relation to regulation, and we have an even greater penalty regime which is about to be introduced, and in respect of cases where there is a positive reading of a rail safety worker—and obviously these are the people who are at the front line when it comes to the safety of themselves and others, passengers, fellow workers and the like, and general members of the public even if they are trespassing on the property—I found it very concerning.

I would not expect that all those 149 reports of positive drug or alcohol test would have necessarily been taken in a circumstance where the person who had the positive reading was about to expose a co-worker or a member of the public or a transport consumer, for example, to a high risk of death or serious injury. It is possible that these positive readings had been taken in a circumstance where the worker had not actually commenced their work for the day, their recording was at a time when they were not behind the wheel or at the switch and there had not been any imminent danger.

I would hope that is the case. I would hate to think that all these 149 reports had been positive tests when people were in a situation where they could create havoc, danger or death. There is every likelihood that there would be some instances where, had the rail safety worker been able to continue their usual routine, as they had been undertaking prior to the testing, they would have placed people at risk. That concerns me.

I therefore suggest that the minister consider whether the national regulator should be required to report to the police a positive reading in the circumstances where there is risk. Risk is defined, in fact, under the new regulations for other penalties but it seems to me that, unless there has been a death or an incident (I think they call it a 'notifiable occurrence'), then there is every likelihood that the police do not know anything about this and, in particular, whether the driver or safety operator was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

I think there needs to be some follow-up to that and I think there is an opportunity for the minister to require it because, if we are going to go down the path of making sure that the businesses themselves, the operators themselves, are running a tight, safe ship—in this case, a train—we need to make sure that there is some consistency in how this will apply. By all means, introduce a penalty regime on this safety risk component for the parties under accreditation, but we have to have some follow-up with those who breach it.

The other aspect which is covered significantly in the bill under a new regime is fatigue management. As I understand it, and it is common sense, I suppose, where you have someone like a train driver who is responsible for the lives of a number of people in a fast-moving vehicle which, of course, takes a long time to pull up if there is any trouble, there would be a high standard expected, not only as to their fitness physically to undertake their duties in a good state of health but also that they are not under the influence of drugs or alcohol and, thirdly, that they are not so under pressure to maintain a sustained workload that it will cause a greater risk. Obviously, that can be severely affected by the hours of work, for example, that a train driver may operate for.

As I understand it, the codes of conduct, or the protocols for safe driving and the minimising of fatigue, are causing a bit of controversy around the country, I would have to say, in other areas around the country, particularly heavy transport. I recently read of the federal minister's coming under fire (Mr Albanese) over the introduction and passage of the safe rates-safe hours legislation—I cannot remember the full name of the federal bill—which he introduced for the heavy transport industry and which contains some extra obligations to make the roads safer. There was much controversy about that. I recall when I consulted on aspects of that—we are now looking at fatigue management rules to come up with a code of conduct, and I do not doubt for one moment that we are going to go down the same line—there was a concern about it in the community, but that also needs to be balanced against what is realistic in the implementation.

I suppose a most realistic and often quoted example is when a truck driver is placed under pressure to get from A to B with a load of freight. Although we have quite a few rules in respect to speed limits, for example, that pressure will mean that they might go over the speed limit or drive for an extraordinary long period of time without adequate rest breaks, and so they then place themselves and other road users at risk. Unfortunately, it is a similar situation to trains, when you have a truck and a car collide, very often the person who is sitting in the car is likely to be injured or killed.

If the federal government was serious about road safety it would implement policies that achieve that, rather than trying to use pieces of legislation to get what it wants. In this instance, the attempt to have remuneration in the benefits paid to drivers for when they are loading or unloading vehicles, the attempt to enable unions to prosecute what are otherwise very significant laws covering road transport and the opportunity to have 50 per cent of the proceeds of penalties paid to the unions, are the sorts of things the federal government has floated with its legislation.

I understand that legislation has recently gone through the Senate. Not surprisingly, the industry is pretty unhappy because it is also an industry—given the minister's meetings in the past few weeks—which is now facing higher fuel prices (that has gone through), lower rebates and a massive increase in registration for trucks and heavy vehicles. So, they are pretty cross that they should have that type of legislation imposed on them. I say to the government: if you are going to introduce a national regulator, let us understand that we have something that is realistic for enforcement that will achieve what we want; that is, in this instance, safer use of our train services, and not just use it as a guise to give the unions what they want.

I come to the introduction of the principles of rail safety, which are new in this legislation. I will ask the minister to explain (in committee) some aspects of that, which appear to me to be some codification of the common law obligations. In particular, when we come to clause 54 and the duties for those loading and unloading freight and also the duty of officers in exercising due diligence, I did note—and this is where I think the whole process is getting rather cute—that it is trying to do through this legislation what it has not been able to achieve in occupational health and safety legislation at a national level, and that is the provision for three categories of failure to comply with safety duties and very significant penalties which clearly are to be consistent with what is in the model work health and safety law which, as I say, is under threat at the moment, given that this jurisdiction and now others are joining the fight against it.

I alert the minister that they in particular are issues that I wish to raise in committee. However, I make the point that there may be a very good reason to have a national regulator when we are now operating in a space where the business owners of the stock, track and trains are operated nationally. We have come a long way from national gauge to national regulation, and all of that may be good, but do not try to use this legislation to get in this door what you cannot get in another door.

I think it is important, in areas of implementation of very high penalties for safe work practices which have their remit in other legislation and which are probably more than adequately covered in other legislation, that we have the case put to us as a parliament, if you are going to use this as a back door vehicle to get in what you cannot get in through the front door.

Finally, I mention the carbon tax. In a couple of months, we are about to have descend on us the effects of a federal carbon tax. The cost to South Australian individuals and families on the state government's assessment of the costing is about $500 per person. That is all the information we have so far.

We have had rather terse responses from the government as to what they are working on and what they are calculating but, from the documents that they have provided to us—not voluntarily but under freedom of information—for South Australia per capita, it would be probably about $500 per annum at a carbon price of $25 a tonne, and we have confirmation that outer metro and regional areas, who are car dependent, will be most affected, as will those in older, less efficient homes, which creates a socioeconomic issue.

I want to say to the parliament that, because this is going to come into effect on 1 July and the bill that we are discussing will have a direct impact on the cost for the business operators of rail on 1 January 2013, in addition to that, this carbon tax is going to be significant because, when that calculation was done, it took into account that those travelling on rail are going to be hit with this tax effect on 1 July 2012. Other heavy transport industries and fuel-reliant industries, on the information provided, will not be affected until 2014. It is not just the industry cost in managing this, which is important. I hope that the minister will give us some assurance in due course that there are not going to be massive hikes on that—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: The minister interjects to say that he did not believe the industry. The industry do not know. The industry are told that it is going to be about the same.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: What have they told you?

Ms CHAPMAN: The industry have said that they have asked the Productivity Commission to keep a watching brief on you, minister, to make sure that what you have said is true, and so will we be. I am confident that they are concerned enough, having sought the services of the Productivity Commission, and that they do understand that governments can say one thing and do another. They will be keeping an eye on you, minister, to make sure that what you have said you are going to do is right. So they should, because I can tell you that, for every other national regulation here, a lot of those industries and professions have been whacked badly. In addition to that, we have the carbon tax. I make this point: not only does the—

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Point of order: I have listened to this for some time. This bill has no relationship whatever to the carbon tax. If this bill is passed or not passed by the parliament, the carbon tax will apply without any alteration. On that basis, can the member return to this bill and, if she wants to talk about the carbon tax, take a grievance later.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Hon. M.J. Wright): I accept the point of order and would ask the shadow minister to return to the bill.

Ms CHAPMAN: I am happy to do that—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: I think you should do that; that's what he's asking for.

Ms CHAPMAN: But that does not mean that the carbon tax is irrelevant to this bill is what I was about to say. The Australasian Railway Association, which has presented submissions to us, has done some costing in relation to the carbon tax and the cost that it will have to its industry. If the government take the view that their new—

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Point of order: I make the point that the carbon tax is going to apply to the rail industry regardless of any provision of this bill. Nothing in this bill makes any difference to it and the member should return to this bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Hon. M.J. Wright): I accept the point of order and I have already ruled accordingly.

Ms CHAPMAN: I indicate that, if there is any direct effect on the cost of the appointment of the regulator—and that is highlighted by the Productivity Commission—then doubtless the industry will be outraged, and so they should be. They pay for a service and they expect it to be efficient. They need to be able to do that to provide not only a good service but also the high standards of safety that we expect of them, if they are not oppressed with other costs. Questions of fuel costs, wages, and health and safety are all expenses that relate to these operators, including the Rail Commissioner of South Australia who operates the publicly-owned services, which are required to be accredited under this bill. Those services also have to be able to afford to operate. The minister can say, 'Well, all these other costs don't matter; it doesn't matter whether we get a carbon tax or whatever—'

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Point of order: I now do not know what the member is talking about, but it is not this bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Hon. M.J. Wright): I ask the member to ensure she is talking about the bill, and I will listen very carefully.

Ms CHAPMAN: I will help you and the minister, who obviously has not read his Rail Safety Regulator's report for this year. That document lists 48 or 49 rail transport operators that are accredited under this process—the structure that we are about to repeal and the establishment of the new national structure. These people have to get accreditation at the national level. One of them, just in case the minister missed it, is the Rail Commissioner. The Rail Commissioner is the only government entity that this relates to. However, that entity still will need to be accredited under the new structure. If there are costs imposed on it, like the other private businesses, including costs that relate from the carbon tax on 1 July—

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Point of order: the speaker is simply ignoring your ruling. The carbon tax has no effect on this bill, and this bill has no effect on the carbon tax—absolutely no relationship. If the member can point to one clause in the bill that suggests a relationship, then I will accept that, but she cannot because it does not. She has simply ignored your ruling for the third time.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Hon. M.J. Wright): I do accept the point of order. I have asked before and I will now insist that the member, the shadow minister, stay within the boundaries of the bill. You have finished? I will call on other speakers.

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