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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-05-14 Daily Xml
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Public Transport

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (14:41): My question is to the Minister for Transport. Does the minister stand by his remarks to the parliament yesterday regarding the safety of traveling on trains? With your leave and that of the house, sir, I will explain my question.

Leave granted.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The minister told the parliament yesterday, and I quote:

…the public health advice has not been for the transport department to do anything different from what it is doing.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:41): Yes, Mr Speaker. In fact, I know where this line of questioning is heading. The member for West Torrens' Twitter account can tell us all where he wants to head this afternoon. We have, in the public transport space, been seeking and provided with public health advice for the entire time through this COVID-19 pandemic. It is the basis on which we have made our decisions. It is the basis on which the government more broadly has made its decisions in relation to services that government provides.

In relation to the services that we are providing, especially dealing with, as I have detailed to the house extensively yesterday, the situation with a reduced number of trains being available on lines is concerned, public health officials have not told us to do anything different from what we are doing. There are a number of things that, over the course of today, have moved forward from yesterday, the first being that we see an extra couple of trains back on our lines today—up to 30 trains—and 32 trains available for tomorrow. This gives us the ability to have three car sets on the Gawler line today and two car sets onto the Belair line tomorrow. We've also been able to institute a Glanville service on the Outer Harbor line.

The next question that the member is going to ask is in relation to comments by Dr Spurrier on the radio this morning with regard to what individuals who catch public transport should do. What Professor Spurrier said is the same as we've actually had plastered on our buses, trains and trams for the past month or more—that is, that people who are unwell should not catch public transport.

The other advice that has been given more generally is the fact that people who can work from home or do not need to undertake travel shouldn't do that. We know that public transport is a vector point. It's why one of the first things we instituted in the early stages of this pandemic was to increase cleaning on our transport. In fact, since that first announcement was made, we've gone from twice-weekly deep intensive cleaning to daily deep intensive cleaning.

What we've also done is provided public health messaging throughout our trains, buses and trams to encourage people to do the right thing. The updated advice as of today is that some of the things that are being observed are that people are bunching themselves up into the front of the train because when you get off at the Adelaide Railway Station you can then get through the terminal and out the door much quicker. As of tomorrow, we're going to see announcements being made on platforms to encourage people to spread themselves out over the number of carriages that are available—

Mr Odenwalder: So it's the passengers' fault?

The SPEAKER: The member for Elizabeth is on the board.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —and in doing so, help us to socially distance more widely. Every day, we are adding new services onto the line. As we saw this morning on the Gawler line, we actually saw people undertaking peak spreading of their own accord. It is something that the Premier discussed yesterday and something that the people of South Australia responded to today.

Yesterday, when we saw only 66 people on the 6.25 service, we saw 123 today, but on a corresponding basis at the 7.25 service we were down from 331 to 257 and then at the 7.55 service it went from 262 down to 205. That is people doing what they have done and whether it is advice from the government on regional travel, whether it's advice from the government on gatherings or, in this case, advice from the government on how to help socially distance on trains, the South Australian public is working with the government to help keep people safe during COVID-19. It's another reason why we need to say thank you to the people of South Australia for their help.

There is a whole series of things that we have done to try to make public transport safe, but I would say that there is a broader issue at play here and that is that at the moment we have reduced numbers of people catching public transport. We are going to see that increase and AHPPC are currently considering for the nation how we deal with that increased density of people on public transport going forward.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Firstly, sir, I ask for your ruling. The minister was quoting statistics from his mobile phone from a document. Could you ask him to table that to the house in its entirety?

The SPEAKER: I have the point of order. Is there a point of order on the point of order?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: Mr Speaker, I provided this information to every TV outlet today, so I'm more than happy to provide it.

The SPEAKER: If the minister could furnish that information to the house that would be excellent. What I was going to say is that I don't believe that you were quoting it, but thank you, minister. Now that you have agreed to do that, we will move to the member for West Torrens and then Florey and then King.

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