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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
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Bills

Supply Bill 2017

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

Mr PISONI (Unley) (12:44): I would like to make some brief comments about the Supply Bill and, particularly, what has been topical on morning radio today with the reannouncement of the electrification of the Gawler railway line to Salisbury. The government must have gone to the little red book of 'What do we do in a lead-up to an election? We make another announcement and put some processes in place so that people actually believe that we are doing something.' That seems to be the government's mantra.

On 22 October 2013, (that was before the last election) there was a press release put out by the Premier and then transport minister, the member for West Torrens, stating:

The electrification of the Gawler line will now extend past Dry Creek—

if you remember, there was an announcement about a line to Dry Creek prior to this announcement—

to Salisbury station following a re-scoping of the $152.4 million project.

The release goes on to say that the work would start in 2015. Of course, we had the election and then we saw that 2015 became 2017-18. If we look at the tenders and contracts pages today, we will see that there is not actually a call for tenders out today, as the government had led people to believe, but an expression of interest for those who may wish to place a tender. We need to remember that this was a job that was started back in 2010 and stopped in 2012 by this government. As a matter of fact, there is a very good chronology in the Auditor-General's Report of 2014 where the Auditor-General explains, in fairly simple terms, what actually happened in the lead-up to the cancellation of the electrification of the Gawler line. The report states:

The Gawler commuter rail line joins the regional city of Gawler to the Adelaide CBD. In May 2009 the Commonwealth Government committed funding of $293.5 million to upgrade rail track and certain stations, and the electrification of the Gawler line.

At that time, the government said that, because of that, they would bring the project forward by two years. The Auditor-General's Report then goes on to state:

In June 2012 the Commonwealth (LABOR) Government advised the Department to cease expenditure of Commonwealth funds on the project following the SA Government's decision in May 2012 to suspend the project.

We all recall that the member for Playford was the treasurer at that time, and I think he blamed the global financial crisis for the need to stop that project. The report continues:

Further, in October 2012, the Commonwealth Government—

and, again that was the Gillard Labor government at the time—

requested that unspent funds ($41 million) be returned to the Commonwealth Government. The Commonwealth Government advised the Department that $10 million of the unspent funds may be used for the Seaford rail extension and the remaining $31 million plus interest was required to be repaid in accordance with the National Partnership Agreement.

And that happened. The Weatherill Labor government in South Australia decided to stop work on that project, and they returned the money to Canberra. It goes on:

The Department return to the unspent funds, including interest, to the Commonwealth…in April 2013. In June 2014 the State Government announced a restart of the project from Adelaide to Salisbury—

this was after the election, of course—

with the project planned to recommence in 2017-18. In 2013-14 the Department assessed expenditure incurred to date on the project, which totalled $50 million.

The review identified a write-down of expenditure totalling $46.6 million.

In other words, of that $50 million that was spent, $46.6 million was wasted.

The Department assessed that costs totalling $28.6 million incurred for the project between Salisbury and Gawler were deemed to be obsolete—

in other words, deemed to be wasted—

or are not likely to provide any future economic benefit. Further, the Department determined that given that the project is planned to recommence in 2017-18, a considerable portion of the design, scoping, project supervision, tendering and mobilisation costs for the Adelaide to Salisbury section of the line totalling $18 million were deemed to be obsolete—

in other words, wasted, once again. This is not me speaking: this is the Auditor-General in his report to the parliament in 2014. To finish the comment that the Auditor-General made in his closing remarks on this particular audit of the work done on the Gawler line back in 2011:

and are likely to be in the most part reincurred when the project recommences.

In other words, it will have to be redone. Today's expression of interest certainly confirms what the auditors raised as concerns back in 2014 because what the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure invites companies or consortia to do is to design and construct the electrification of infrastructure on the Gawler rail line from Adelaide to Salisbury. All the design work that was done previously, as pointed out by the Auditor-General in June 2014, can no longer be used.

It has to be redesigned, so we are seeing an additional cost to the taxpayers of South Australia because of that very bad decision made by the Premier and the member for Playford back in 2012 to stop work on the line when they had the money in the bank. It was their choice to discontinue that job. What is also interesting about the expression of interest request on the tenders and contracts page today is:

The electrification of the Gawler rail line is the next stage of the electrification program for the Adelaide Metropolitan Passenger Rail Network—

Remember, this program was announced in 2008 and work started in 2011. Here we are in 2017, and this is the next stage. It continues:

following the completion of electrification of the Seaford Line. This stage of the program will deliver an electrified service between Adelaide Railway Station and Salisbury Railway Station—

wait for this—

within a three-year timeframe.

Three years—an announcement today, before the election, of the tenders going out, yet according to the government's own tender documents we have no guarantee that the work will even start before the election. The instruction to those who are registering an interest is important. It is information that people base their costings on, so the information the government is giving about this project has to be correct. The tender documents, or the description for the registration of interest, on the tender and contracts page on the government's own website state:

This stage of the program will deliver an electrified service between Adelaide Railway Station and Salisbury Railway Station within a three-year timeframe.

If we look from when the work was started in 2011 through to when the work will be finished halfway—Salisbury is a little more than halfway between Adelaide and Gawler—we see that, a decade after the work was started and $46.6 million of infrastructure was written off because of the government's decision to stop the work back in 2012, the job is half done. It is a very frustrating situation for the people in the northern suburbs.

As somebody who grew up in the northern suburbs, when I started my apprenticeship in 1980 I was reliant on the train at the Salisbury station to get me into town, so that I could clock on just after 7am, and to take me home in time for dinner at around 5.30 in the afternoon. It was a very reliable service at the time. The 6.30 train I caught at the Salisbury station ran about eight to 10 carriages. It stopped at all stations to Parafield Gardens and right through to the industrial stations along the way, including Islington, Dudley Park and the member for Adelaide's electorate—right through to North Adelaide. I remember that North Adelaide was a big stop at that time. All the employees from the brewery and Clipsal used to get off at that stop, and a few of us remained for the trip all the way into town.

It has been a very poorly managed process. You can understand why the federal government wants to see a business case. What is interesting about the minister's claims in the media today is that the federal government has seen a business case, yet on 22 October 2013, after the government's business case of 2012 was presented to the federal government for further funding, Premier Jay Weatherill revealed that, as part of the $36 billion transport provision, the project had not been fully costed. That is another pre-election promise for which we have seen no outcome since it was made. He states in Hansard that 'the reinstatement of the electrification of the remainder of the Gawler line has not been fully costed'.

The minister said on radio that there is a properly costed business case. That business case is dated 2012, according to the minister's own Twitter account, where he placed a photograph of the cover of the business case to claim that the state government had done the work needed in order to get funding for this project. The Premier told the parliament after that business case that 'the reinstatement of the electrification of the remainder of the Gawler line has not been fully costed'. It is a very confusing situation for those commenting on this or those who are waiting for this job to be finished, a job that, according to the government's own tender documents, will not be finished until 2020. It seems an extraordinarily long time for a project that was promised in 2008.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.R. Kenyon.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:01.

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