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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-07-07 Daily Xml
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Keolis Downer

Mr TARZIA (Hartley) (14:34): My question is to the same minister. Has the minister been advised by Keolis Downer that they will not be seeking compensation for the termination of their contract?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:34): I have made it very, very clear from the very beginning. In fact, we made it clear when the former government broke their promise about not having a privatisation agenda. When the previous government—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister has the call.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: —went out to—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Florey!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: —announce—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The minister has the call.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Interjections across the chamber are unwelcome. The minister has the call.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: When the previous government announced—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Colton!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: —that they were privatising our trains and trams without having a mandate from the public, the Leader of the Opposition—in fact, they had a mandate to do the opposite—then wrote to all the participants in the tender process advising them that in South Australia there are fixed terms, and there are fixed-term elections, and 'participate in this tender at your risk' because if Labor is elected we will be undoing this contract.

Mr Tarzia interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hartley is warned for a second time.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: All the participants were fairly warned; they were told. This is not like the previous government—

Mr Tarzia interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hartley is on three warnings. The minister has the call.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: We made it very clear to all participants that we would be bringing this contract back in. When we were elected, one of the first meetings the Premier and I had was with Keolis Downer, and Keolis Downer accepted the mandate of the South Australian public that these contracts would be returned to public hands, and they will. If the opposition still think that's a bad idea, they should say so.

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Chaffey!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: It's important to remember that when you make an election commitment to keep your word, and keeping your word means something to some people. It means a lot to the Premier, it means a lot to the people of South Australia, and our job as ministers and a government is to make sure that our election commitments are fulfilled. The commission of inquiry, as an election commitment, is not the sole commitment. The commitment is to return our trains and trams into public hands; that is the aim.

Mr Tarzia interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hartley is on three warnings.

Mr Patterson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Morphett!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Keolis Downer—

Mr Tarzia interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hartley can depart under 137A for the remainder of question time, and I observe that the member for Florey is now two warnings.

The honourable member for Hartley having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: He wants to be so much like me, sir; I am very proud. The commitment that we have made is to bring our trains and trams back into public hands and to do an assessment about whether it's feasible to bring our buses back into public hands. That is the commitment that we will be keeping. We will be doing that assessment, we will be bringing our trains and trams back into public hands, and the reason we want to do that is that public transport is an essential service. Every time a South Australian catches a bus, train or a tram, we all save.

Mr Telfer interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Flinders!

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: The former government embarked on a series of intersection upgrades. Portrush Road, for example, is a good example.

The SPEAKER: There is a point of order, minister, which I will hear under 134.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Sir, standing order 98: the minister is now debating. Also, he is straying from the substance of the question.

The SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Morialta. There is some force in what the member says. I will listen closely to the minister. The minister is late in the answer, and I am particularly alive to the standing order at this point in the answer.

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Thank you, sir, but the point I was trying to make to the house is about the massive amount of money we have to spend on infrastructure, because public transport options are being governed by private profits rather than public interest. So our view is, if you have the public transport system operating in the public interest rather than in the interests of shareholders who are offshore, we can get better outcomes. The Treasurer can save those precious dollars that we dole out over and over again to build infrastructure to meet peak demand when still encouraging public transport use.

We have seen a dramatic increase in public transport use over the last month or so. We want that to increase, but we are still 25 per cent below where we were before the COVID pandemic, so there is more scope for us to grow, and bringing our trains and trams back into public hands will help.

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