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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-10-13 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Train Services

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (14:19): My question is to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. How much does it cost currently to run Adelaide's train network?

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (14:19): I thank the member for his question and note he is referring to our outsourced contract with Keolis Downer, who will be running our train service.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Mr Speaker, if I can give the fulsome answer, that would be greatly appreciated.

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister has the call.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: Thank you very much. That is what he is referring to and that is a $2.14 billion contract, including GST—

Mr MALINAUSKAS: That's not what I'm referring to.

The SPEAKER: Order, leader!

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD: —for 12 years. Just to make that point clear, $2.14 billion including GST is the contract. That includes operating and maintenance costs for the heavy rail network, so there is the combination of the two parts there. Maintenance costs are around $12 million to $15 million a year and that includes, of course, maintaining rolling stock, engines, bogies, wheels, and also rail tamping and signal replacement, so it's a big operating system.

What I can tell the Leader of the Opposition is that, last year, the operating cost of our train network was $133.6 million. That is excluding GST and excluding those maintenance costs. To run the operation it was $133.6 million. The great part about this is the Keolis Downer contract I spoke about will save South Australian taxpayers $118 million over 12 years. That is putting money back into better services.

They are renowned for delivering better services. Actually, just this Thursday, I think, they are in the finals of the Australasian Rail Industry Awards for service delivery. They won it last year for their service delivery on the Gold Coast for the light rail contract they have up there and they are in the awards and a finalist for their service delivery on Yarra Trams. Of course, they are contracts that they have had and I think they were given to them by previous Labor governments.

They are the figures and we are excited. We are excited to be delivering better services and, at the same time, saving money for the taxpayers. When we came into government, that is what we said we would do—more jobs, lower costs, better services—and that is what we are delivering.

The SPEAKER: Before I call the leader, I call to order the leader, the Deputy Premier, the member for West Torrens and the member for Playford.

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