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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-11-13 Daily Xml
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Bus Services On Demand

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (14:18): Thank you very much, sir.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: My question is to the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure. Why wasn't an open-call tender conducted for the on-demand bus trial, which was awarded to Keolis Downer, that will provide bus services in the minister's electorate?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:18): I am glad to update the house and correct the record on some of the inaccurate information on this issue that has been put out into the public by some quarters. What is interesting is that we didn't hide the fact that we went out to a select market tender. So much so we didn't hide it, we actually put out a press release in April that said the exact phrase, 'select market approach'.

We not only pooled together the people who made approaches who have the ability and the capability to provide the service but we also did a market scan to look at businesses across the country who also provide the services and invited them—seven different proponents—to put bids to us about conducting a trial in South Australia. We undertake a select market tender in the same way that the former government undertook select market tenders on a whole range of things. I don't know that that was the process that was followed at Gillman, but there are plenty—hundreds—of other examples of that being the case. We announced it in April. We didn't hide it from anybody. It was there—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, members on my right!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —in a press release. What has happened over the past—

Mr Brown interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Playford!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —seven months is we have gone through an independent tender evaluation process. The tender panel decided that these were the projects that were going to provide the best value for money. But what is interesting here is that there is a clear indication from the member for West Torrens that he is seeking to cast aspersions on Keolis Downer's ability to operate public transport services. He did it again on radio this morning.

What I find interesting is that, even though he is trying to do this now, the government that he was part of assigned a massive part of our public transport network for Keolis Downer to run back in 2015. So what I don't understand is that it's okay to assign them a contract in 2015, but it's not okay for them to undertake an on-demand bus trial in 2019. I can only surmise that there is one thing that changed between 2015 and 2019, and that is that the Marshall Liberal government won an election.

What these services are going to do—and it is something that I know the member for Kavel is deeply passionate about—is actually improve public transport services in areas where we do not have decent coverage and decent frequency. For the member for Kavel's electorate, they will complement existing fixed-route services through the township, connecting the township with—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Kaurna! Member for Reynell!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —shopping centres, but also with the—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —bus interchange that gets people to Adelaide. In the Barossa, what's interesting is we don't have any fixed-route loop services that actually connect anything to anything. We have a full cost recovery LinkSA service that runs people down to Gawler and connects with the train, but my commuters actually pay full tote for that service. We've now got the opportunity to undertake a trial where there isn't another service that it's competing against, and it will be a really good test bed for how this service works in isolation from anything else.

This builds on the proud record that this government has in delivering better public transport services. And for the entire time of our government, we have used one measure—one measure—to determine whether or not a public transport network works.

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: That measure is bums on seats.

Mr Picton: They've gone down.

The SPEAKER: The member for Kaurna is warned.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: What does the record show? Apart from again some fallacious information that may have been put out there a couple of weeks ago, in the annual report handed down we are 1.2 million passengers up on last year, on the 2018-19 financial year. That is 1.2 million more passengers who have decided to use the service.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Of course, there are ways to cherrypick figures to try to claim an argument, the difficulty being—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —that you didn't get your maths right because the end of January is actually when the bus changes started, not the start of January. But don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Don't let the truth get in the way of a bit of a slur on morning radio.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Kaurna is on two warnings.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: The truth is, this government is delivering better services that more people are choosing to use and these on-demand bus services are a fantastic step forward for South Australia.

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Leader! The member for West Torrens and then the member for King.

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