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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) (14:46): My question is to the Minister for Transport. Would the minister table the health advice he referenced in parliament yesterday assuring the public of the safety of travelling on trains and, if not, why not?

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL (Schubert—Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government, Minister for Planning) (14:46): Again, Mr Speaker, what we have done is listen to the health advice. In fact, there has been a series of meetings and conversations that have been had over the course of the past few days back and forth. Not all of that is necessarily documented, but what the member is attempting to do is to try to somehow suggest that public health officials—

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order, sir: the minister is impugning an improper motive on me. I'm asking a question seeking information.

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: You haven't heard what motive he is impugning.

The SPEAKER: The Minister for Education is warned for interjecting, but he does raise a valid point. What I will do is I will ask if the minister might be able to phrase it another way to ensure that he does not impute any improper motive onto any member.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: We have been following the advice from the public health officials. What we haven't been doing—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —with the greatest of respect, is following the advice of the opposition, who weeks ago were telling us that we needed to shut down schools. We didn't listen to them. We listened to the health advice. They are now saying—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: —that they know best on public transport instead of the public health officials.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Point of order: debate, sir.

The SPEAKER: I don't agree. I have allowed some compare and contrast. He is referring to the opposition generally, but I would suggest to the minister that those sorts of statements might provoke some reaction from the opposition, so could he come back to the substance of the question.

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: There is advice that is being prepared more formally at the moment that AHPPC are considering. It may shock members of the opposition, but this issue is not unique to South Australia. The eastern seaboard actually has much higher rates of public transport usage than South Australia, but that is a debate for a different day. In Sydney and Melbourne, they are already seeing these kinds of issues occur.

Whether it's the UK or most of the known Western world, which have high-density usage of public transport, this is an issue that we need to deal with globally, balancing on one hand the risks around COVID-19 of people using public transport and on the other hand the fact that public transport is a way that people can go about their daily lives and get to work, especially as we deal with essential workers needing to get to and from where they need to go.

That advice I can't publish at the moment because it hasn't been considered by national cabinet yet, but AHPPC are working through that. What South Australians can rest assured will happen though is that this government will listen to that advice and we will follow it. The reason that people can trust in it is that it's precisely what we have done all the way along. When it comes to increasing, when it comes to messaging, when it's the way we have structured our services, these things have all been in conjunction with public health officials.

In relation to the situation we are dealing with at the moment, it is an evolving situation. On Monday, we only had 20 of the 70 DMUs in service; as of tomorrow that's going to be 32, and as of next Monday we are looking at 42 being back in service. So this is an evolving situation. As I said, in conjunction with the health advice today, the decision was taken that, as of tomorrow morning, we will be providing announcements on platforms to encourage people to spread out across the train. Also as of tomorrow morning, a substitute bus will be provided between Mawson Lakes and the city in peak periods to help deal with that issue.

The other thing that I can update the house on is the fact that, as of this morning, I had confirmation that all of the parts that allow us to fix this issue, which is under warranty—and can I say that the origins of this issue are now stemming back to decisions taken back in 2016 and 2017 in relation to the warranty life of the parts that we are now having to replace—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: It was not this government's decision to extend the life of the existing diesel fleet; all we are doing now is having to fix up what we have been left with as a consequence of that decision.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.K. KNOLL: The least that could happen while we are trying to fix up the mess is maybe just a little bit of humility or some other form of contrition, but instead what we see, once again, is members of the opposition thinking that they are smarter than Dr Spurrier and the public health officials. South Australians can rest assured that we won't be listening to them; we will be doing exactly what has helped get us into this good position and has made South Australia one of the global leaders when it comes to dealing with this pandemic.

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