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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-06-07 Daily Xml
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Bills

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

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 25 May 2016.)

Mr PISONI (Unley) (11:03): I spoke at some length at the last sitting period and sought leave to conclude my remarks just in case I missed something out, but I think I covered it fairly well. On that basis, as indicated in my previous remarks, the opposition supports the bill, and I commend it to the house.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:04): I rise to speak to the Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) (Miscellaneous No. 2) Amendment Bill 2016. This is part of a range of bills that we have had in regard to Rail Safety National Law. I note that back in 2009 the Council of Australian Governments agreed to implement national rail safety reform so that we would end up with a national single rail safety regulator. In so doing, we would develop a rail safety national law which would, obviously, be administered by that rail regulator.

The aims of the reform are to support a seamless national rail transport system, not reduce the existing levels of rail safety (so you would hope it would augment better levels of safety), streamline the regulatory arrangements, reduce the compliance burden for business (which can only be a good thing) and also improve national productivity and reduce transport costs generally.

In regard to the operation of the regulator, it has successfully discharged its obligations under the law in the first two years of operation. That included facilitating the safe operation of rail transport in Australia by providing a scheme for national accreditation of rail transport operators and promoting the provision of national policies, procedures and guidance to industry.

This bill is the second amendment package, which is administrative in nature, and it will improve the operation of the Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) Act. It will do this partly by clarifying issues around infringement penalties and court-imposed penalties so that they can be paid into the regulator's fund; this, as I indicated, provides clarity to an existing provision. It will also 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.

Certainly, there is talk about allowing authorised officers to secure the perimeter of sites for compliance and investigation purposes, but that would not explicitly restrict access to rolling stock. There is a requirement for a third party to notify a rail infrastructure manager before carrying out any work near a railway that threatens or is likely to threaten the safety of the railway or the operational integrity of the railway.

This is really an administrative matter to keep up with national law. When you go into the history of rail in Australia it would have been nice to have a national law way back in the 1800s so that we did not end up with so many gauges which have had to be either fixed, changed over, or in some cases we have just had to live with. We note over history the number of times people have had to change trains, whether it is during the Second World War heading to Darwin or just travelling interstate.

In the early nineties, I worked on the Melbourne-Adelaide rail standardisation program (the MARS project, as it was called). It was an interesting project, where contractors joined in the work alongside the few remaining rail gang people who were still left back then. We used to have quite a group of rail gangers who lived up and down the railway line, wherever they were in South Australia, and these people did excellent work maintaining the rail. It was a mix of experienced gangers and contractors, or, like me, a lot of farmers or people from local towns. We were working on the section between just north of Coonalpyn down to the other side of Keith.

It was an interesting project where, for a few weeks, before the main shift happened at Easter time, we had an unclipping machine which was taking the clips off the rail. You have to understand that we still had trains running on it because this was the main Melbourne-Adelaide line. You would unclip every other clip, then on the corners you might do one in six and then take out every other one again on the straight. The corners obviously needed better stability for trains to come round. Train speeds were reduced as we made more progress over time, and in the end they managed to run the trains right up to the Easter when we did the full move.

It was interesting that we were using equipment that was built for maintenance and not for major projects like this, so inevitably it would break down. It certainly highlighted the fact when we did the big shift—and I am just glad I was put on the little machine, which was like a little trolley with a Honda motor on the back. You roared along and set the unclipper in place, snapped the clips off, and your workmate picked up the clips and threw them in a pile to be picked up. It was good work and it was fascinating.

One day, I sat in one of the supervisor's Toyotas, when my machine was being repaired. One good thing was that we had a repair crew so that if anything went wrong you just waved to them. You did not have to do your own maintenance—up they came and fixed it. I looked at the program for the works and asked, 'What's this? It says we only need to do eight kilometres a day.' He said, 'That's alright.' I said, 'We're doing 16.' He said, 'That's even better.' It was interesting work. I met a lot of people, and they were going to take me on and have me work on the next section north of Murray Bridge through to Adelaide, but I had to get home and help with the seeding.

It was certainly a good project to standardise the rail. I take my hat off to the guys who were in the middle of the crew because, when they did the rail before, any of the work started had concrete sleepers installed with two lots of lugs so that you could go from the broad gauge, which it was, back to standard. The rail was lifted about three feet in the air (a metre in new terms) and people would turn items around on the rail and then put the rail back. It was a lot of backbreaking work. I was very fortunate to be part of that for only about an hour for the whole main shift. This does exemplify the fact that it is better, especially with national rail, to have a national law so that we can have better management and better safety procedures, and that is essentially what this bill is about.

It does cause me angst to think that after just over 100 years the Mallee lines have essentially been shut down. They are still there, but there has been a lack of maintenance funding and restricted use on those lines. I used to look after all these lines. There is only a little bit of rail near Tailem Bend now. They are well up into the member for Chaffey's seat now, right through to the border at Pinnaroo. When you look at this rail that helped open up this state and this country, it is sad that it has now been shut down because the last users, Viterra, figured that it was not beneficial or consistent with good practice and that they could shift grain cheaper by road.

This does raise a lot of quandaries. I think more money should have been put into the maintenance of that rail to keep it up to speed instead of it only being able to operate at night or under 30º and at speeds, when it was warm, of only up to 25 km/h. It did have its own inefficiencies, but it is nothing that could not have been helped with more money being spent on the maintenance.

In relation to the Melbourne to Adelaide line, there is talk about a rail freight bypass coming in from Monarto. I know that GHD did a report on this several years ago, to do a bypass from somewhere near Monarto and shoot around to, possibly, Two Wells to completely bypass Adelaide. I think there is a lot of sense in this proposal, but there are also a lot of dollars (pardon the pun) in this proposal.

When I say a lot of dollars, it is billions of dollars because certainly it would be a multibillion dollar project. It would have to secure the access route and, to increase the viability and feasibility of it as a transport network, if it ever were to go in place—and I like to think that it would one day—it would also have a highway built next to it. Essentially, from what the studies tell us, something like at least 70 per cent of the freight that comes into Adelaide, whether by road or rail, could be diverted round to the north and completely miss coming up through the Hills.

We have had Hills rail since rail was laid down in South Australia and, in order to have efficient trains, the trains have been lengthened. We have had pull-over places of up to two kilometres long put in for the extra long trains that go along now, and that is a fact of life. I think that on the national stage it would be a great program to run that rail round from Monarto, from the intermodal hub. We already have a range of industry at Monarto: we have Australian Portable Camps, we have Scotts Transport, we have Adelaide Mushrooms right there, and we have a Big W distribution centre and a whole range of others involved in freight and industry located there.

I certainly believe it would make a lot of sense in the future. It is something that I think governments of all colours and all levels need to look at into the future so that we get these things sorted out because it would take away not only a lot of the trains, or a lot of the carriages, that would have to come right through the Adelaide Hills, past Mount Barker and through to Adelaide, but also a lot of the road freight.

I certainly acknowledge that Portrush Road is a vital part of that freight network, especially heading round to the grain silos at Viterra. A lot of those road trucks are being taken off just because a lot more trains are now hauling grain into Port Adelaide, so I think there is much work that could be done there, and it needs to be looked at. Down the track, there is also the potential for an airport at Monarto to make it a real intermodal project that would benefit this state into the future.

In line with that, people sometimes talk to me about passenger rail from down Murray Bridge way into Adelaide, and the problem is the simple fact of having to curl your way up through Mount Barker and Blackwood. Back when I was younger—and it is a little while ago now—I can remember that at Coomandook, which is an hour by train further on from Murray Bridge, it would take three hours for the Bluebird to get out there. That means it is about two hours from Murray Bridge through to the Adelaide station. If you had passenger rail, I think it would just be too much of a time inconvenience.

In the bigger picture—and this would be a big project—if you are going to run passenger rail into Adelaide from Murray Bridge, you would need to divert off somewhere near Mount Barker and run rail virtually in alignment with the freeway. You could go to light rail if you were only using it for passengers, and you would probably have to make another tunnel at the Heysen Tunnels. Again, I am heading into the billions of dollars—but you can always have a wish list.

You could connect through to the existing line that crosses Cross Road. That would make rail travel far more convenient for people coming from my end into Adelaide but, because of the cost, I do not know if that would ever happen. I think it would be far more sensible to get Metroticketing and public transport through to Murray Bridge, and it is already at Mount Barker. It would really open up avenues for people, whether they be students, elderly or people just going about their business, to access the city, as Murray Bridge is an ever-growing place, and it would certainly benefit the community.

With those few words, I certainly support the use of rail, and I think we should be making more use of it and not less. As I said, I think it would have been good if we had had some more cohesion between the states all those years ago, back in the 1800s, when rail was going down, that we did not end up with so many gauges, whether they be narrow, standard or broad; and I believe there are some others. It would have made it far simpler for everyone into the future.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (11:20): I have a brief contribution with regard to the Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) (Miscellaneous No. 2) Amendment Bill. It is obviously with a little bit of sadness that I get up. The member for Hammond has touched on the issues regarding the rail that was operating in the electorate of Chaffey but, to give a bit more background, in December 2009 the Council of Australian Governments implemented national rail safety reform, creating a single rail safety regulator and developing a rail safety national law.

The Rail Safety National Law commenced operation in January 2013, with Queensland recently also adopting the law. The Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator now operates in all jurisdictions. The Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator was established as a body corporate under the law and facilitates safe rail operations through accreditation of operations under industry guidance, education and training. The National Transport Commission identifies legislative amendments in cooperation with the regulator and participating jurisdictions.

Ministers of transport and infrastructure councils approved this bill on 6 November 2015, and South Australia, as a host jurisdiction, is responsible for the passage of amendment bills through the South Australian parliament, which are subsequently automatically adopted into legislation by other participating jurisdictions through the application act.

I want to quickly touch upon the issue of rail here in South Australia. Rail was obviously one of the stable mechanisms of transport, particularly bringing in primary production and passengers from regional South Australia, from interstate, into primarily Adelaide, or down at Port Adelaide, for many of the commodities that came in on train, but primarily driven by grain.

Obviously, recently, we have seen the discontinuation of rail for the two Mallee lines. It was quite a sad day when the last train pulled out of Loxton and was not going to be backed up by the next rail load of grain heading from Loxton or Tookayerta, heading towards Tailem Bend and then obviously down to the Port.

There have been many issues. There was quite a bit of consultation between myself and the current Minister for Transport, and there was a lot of concern about what would happen once the use of those two train lines, or two train routes, was discontinued. That was going to put a potential 200,000 tonnes of grain on the road, taking it off the rail. So I had a number of concerns. Obviously one was the condition of the three major highways that are now being put under pressure: the Mallee Highway, the Karoonda Highway—as it is affectionately known, but its official title is the Stott Highway—and of course the Sturt Highway.

Those highways are now seeing extreme amounts of pressure put on them. It is not just about the grain that is now all on-road; the wine grape vintages are also putting extra pressure on roads because what we are seeing is a lot of fruit coming out of the Riverland and neighbouring areas and heading down to the Barossa and to McLaren Vale, Langhorne Creek, and into Victoria in some cases. We are seeing growth industries now utilising those three highways much more regularly.

It is not just grain, it is not just wine grapes, it is hay and a myriad of jurisdictions that are now using it, particularly the potato industry. Potatoes, onions, broadacre horticulture are all now putting everything on the road. It is not just about the product, it is about inputs. Obviously when we see these farms growing a lot of product, we have to remember that there are inputs that go in there as well, like the return trucks—whether they are for nutrient, fertiliser, seed or overrun of production lines—and we are seeing a number of small mines opening up in that jurisdiction too.

They were always issues that I put to both the minister and Genesee & Wyoming when we were in that transition period. The transition period was about a 12-month period. When I first met with the minister my concerns were listened to, so there was a 12-month breathing period between making that announcement and then the negotiations with Genesee & Wyoming to continue using those rail lines.

Yes, sadly, the rail lines were in poor condition. I think in particular the Mallee line was in a poorer state than the Riverland or the Tookayerta lines. However, what we saw was farms positioning themselves and putting in infrastructure so that they could use more on-farm storage. Rather than having the mass of grain put into trucks and utilising truck after truck down the highway, with on-farm storage in particular we are seeing a more steady pace of grain out of the region. A lot more grain is stored on-farm now so that farmers can utilise markets. They can utilise their selling power rather than hitting the port, hitting the markets and hitting the silos with one big heavy thrust.

There are other players now within the grain-buying or grain-trading jurisdiction and that is basically levelling out the huge demand on those highways during grain season which, essentially, is from the end of October to around Christmas time. Then we see a continual flow of the broadacre horticulture and then the wine grape vintage. We see a number of trucks carrying a broad range of horticulture, particularly citrus, almonds and other stone fruit. We see the opening up of free trade agreements with exporters now putting a lot more product on the highway, down to a port and onto a boat and, in some cases, onto a plane.

We are seeing now a lot more of our product hitting those roads and putting pressure on those roads. I note that the member for Hammond had some very expensive ideas, and I probably have some pretty expensive ideas too—and I am sure the Minister for Transport is listening—because I would like to think that we would be able to reduce the number of heavy vehicles on our roads. Why can we not look at putting road trains on those three highways? Why can we not look at making those highways safer, more robust, with wider shoulders and reducing the number of trucks, making the industries more viable?

If we look at the West Coast of South Australia, over in the electorate of Flinders, under the good guidance of the member for Flinders in the chamber here, they have a competitive advantage by using road trains and a lesser number of trucks. However, it is also cheaper to get every tonne of product down to port and into market, so I think that is something that we need to be looking at. We see a lot of product now containerised and I think the road train configuration can be very easily adapted to the farming model.

If we look at B-triples, they are very expensive for a farmer to adopt or to adapt. They are moving, I guess, trucks within the farm. But what we can see is that it is very easy to adapt two A trailers into a road train configuration. If we make them more competitive and get the number of trucks reduced on the road, I feel that that would make it a safer road, particularly with the initiation of being able to use the road train configuration.

Again, load restrictions, speed restrictions and heat restrictions were put on those rail lines, which also took a toll when the rail was in operation, but those same restrictions still take a toll on the road. In hot weather we see heavy vehicles running onto the edge of shoulders, and shoulders fall to bits very quickly. What I would like to think is that we would be able to upgrade our roads to a level that is not only satisfactory and safe but also will give us competitive advantage, particularly by applying those road train configurations.

I have touched on the wine grape crush. As we know, 64 per cent of the state's wine crush comes out of the Riverland, and so a majority of that crush does go to other areas that utilise our highways. Again, we need to look at some long-term vision. I just wanted to touch, too, on the rail, which had no place in the current government's latest 30-year infrastructure transport plan. So, it was clear that there was no real intent that we were going to see rail supported, particularly in some of our most productive and diverse areas in South Australia. Again, when grain hit rail there was about 307 kilometres out of Loxton down to Tailem, and if we looked at road it was about 257 kilometres. So, there was, I guess, a saving in the length of that trip; but, again, once those trucks hit our roads everyone has to deal with it—cars, motorbikes—and, in particular, it becomes a road safety issue.

If we look at the government's method of reducing our road toll, it is, 'We won't fix the roads, we'll just slow the traffic down.' I think it is clear that it is a much cheaper solution when they do not have to actually enact any real major infrastructure upgrades—'We'll just slow the traffic down.' It is much cheaper just to change a road sign than it is to actually fix up what is really important, and that is to make our roads safer for everyone to use, whether it is for private or commercial use.

Again, it is an issue of, 'Let's see how we can make our road infrastructure better. How can we make it more efficient?' I reckon that I have one better than the member for Hammond. Let us say that we have trucks coming off the Mallee Highway, trucks coming off the Stott Highway and trucks coming done the South Eastern Freeway, and we cross at Monarto or we come across at Sedan. Let us divert all the trucks away from the Mount Barker Road. Let's direct all the trucks away from coming down that dangerous section of very steep road into Adelaide.

Let us get them off Portrush Road and get them on the bypass road through Sedan, the Halfway House Road. Let us get them onto the Sturt Highway (a dual passageway) to the Truro bypass and into the port, and no-one has to deal with trucks coming up behind private vehicles on the Mount Barker Road. They do not have to deal with trucks on Portrush Road, and it makes it a much safer environment.

If we are not going to spend money on rail, let us spend money on productive infrastructure. Let us get the heavy vehicles to port, to the airports, in the best and safest way possible. It has been put on the Engineers Australia program and it is something that I think we need to look much more seriously at. I just want to say that it was a sad day when both Mallee rail lines were put out of existence, if you like. The rail towns are slowly fading. That is just attrition when we do not have rail running through those towns. The rail lines are now rusty. Sadly, the rail corridor is infested with weeds. It is something that is almost from a bygone era.

Once upon a time in the Mallee, those smaller towns thrived. Some of the small Mallee towns had hundreds of children going to those local schools. Today, there is barely a person in sight. All we ever see are roly-polies and the silos that were once used and now are in a state of disrepair. Really, today, the telltale trains are no longer there. They are part of history, and it is sad that we are ignoring what rail gave to this state. We are putting all of our product and all of our transport mechanisms onto the road, but it is a failing piece of infrastructure, whether it is the Mallee, the Stott Highway or the Sturt Highway.

I think we need to work in a much more constructive way. It is all very well to put every piece of resource into the north-south corridor, which I think is a valuable piece of infrastructure. We look at O-Bahn upgrades, which are questionable. In some cases, we see a lot of what I would say is pork-barrelling here in South Australia with governments looking after their marginal seats and doing things that are questionable about the productivity of this great state.

I would like to see us have a great productivity gain here in South Australia by upgrading our roads and making sure our heavy vehicles are competitive right across the state and that we support our agriculture sector no matter whether it is in a government-held electorate or an opposition-held electorate. We need to support the state's economy and, at the moment, we are not seeing a government that is really harnessing how they can actually make this state a better state that is more productive and gets our product efficiently and effectively to port or to its destination so that we can compete with our other states.

What we are seeing at the moment is South Australia becoming more and more uncompetitive. I think that putting rail out of action and not upgrading or not working to make our road networks competitive is a blight on this current government. I support this bill, and I hope that the minister has a sympathetic ear to the way we can actually upgrade our roads and be more competitive.

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