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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-05-02 Daily Xml
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Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) (Fees) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 23 March 2023.)

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (16:50): I rise to speak on the Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) (Fees) Amendment Bill 2023. This is another important reform relating to safety on our railways, and I know how important safety is on our railways having represented engineers for many years in my role at Professionals Australia, and having two constituents who have worked in significant roles for many years on our railways. I am proud that South Australia is the lead legislator for the Rail Safety National Law and, further, that this bill has come to this place 12 years after the Council of Australian Governments' agreement that the national regulators for rail, maritime and heavy vehicles would progress towards full cost recovery from industry operators.

The bill will make amendments to the Rail Safety National Law that are required to support the implementation of the new cost recovery model and associated changes. The Rail Safety National Law needs to be amended to allow a freight terminal to fall within the definition of a private siding, and to remove the requirement for an accredited and registered person to pay a fee when applying to vary their accreditation or registration.

The bill will exempt tourist and heritage operators from the requirement to pay an annual accreditation or registration fee, require the National Rail Safety Regulator to ensure that tourists and heritage operators are recorded in the National Rail Safety Register, and allow the national regulations to prescribe a method by which accreditation fees, registration fees and exemption fees may be increased each year, and to require the regulator to publish said fees. The target date for the bill to come into operation is 1 July this year.

The full cost recovery model will mean that governments in all jurisdictions will cease funding the regulator for regulating commercial operators. Currently the ACT, New South Wales, Northern Territory, Tasmanian and Victorian governments contribute over $10 million a year to fund the regulator. These are funds that can be used by the states and territories to deliver more services to their communities.

I know from my constituent Trevor Milde that safety on freight and commercial railways needs to be strongly regulated to ensure the safety of everyone. I would like to send the appreciation of this parliament to Trevor Milde who spent 43 years servicing our community as a train driver. Trevor started with South Australian Railways then Australian National, before National Rail and Pacific Rail.

In fact, Trevor had the privilege of returning the first Adelaide to Darwin Ghan service from Port Augusta to Adelaide, and through his career used to drive from Adelaide to Broken Hill in New South Wales, Dimboola in Victoria and Tarcoola on the Far West Coast of South Australia. Trevor's interest in trains has never diminished and he is still involved with the miniature railway at Regency Park, as well as having a fantastic set-up of railway memorabilia and a model railway in his home.

We are talking about freight services today but the love of trains has often developed in families at model railways like that at Millswood where myself, husband and children, Lucy and Sam, spent many Sunday mornings in years past, riding the trains or those similar at Regency Park, Prospect, Penfield, Roseworthy, Morphett Vale, and Clare among other locations. There are the tourist and heritage railways such as the much-loved SteamRanger and Cockle trains plus the Pichi Richi railway. The subsidisation of the tourist and heritage sector by commercial operators will be significantly reduced under the new arrangements introduced by this bill.

The states, territories and commonwealth will pay a total of $4.9 million towards the cost of regulating tourist and heritage operators. South Australia's contribution to cover tourist and heritage operations will be just 4.81 per cent of the $4.9 million national contribution; however, the larger commercial operators will be required to contribute to cover the regulator's fixed costs associated with the tourist and heritage sector.

When talking about our railways, we cannot forget about our suburban trains and the dedicated Passenger Service Assistants (PSAs) and train drivers who work on our currently privatised suburban railway network. I know that our Minister for Infrastructure and Transport is undertaking the work required with Keolis Downer to bring back our trains into public ownership, as we promised some years ago now.

I am lucky to have a woman in my electorate who was one of the first female drivers to drive Adelaide's trains. Carolyn Meridew was an assistant driver, first refuelling and moving trains before her career driving Jumbos, and diesel and electric trains. I am sure that most members can remember the Jumbos and some may remember the Redhens; I certainly do. I used to catch the Redhen from Hove to Marion station to get to school. In fact, there used to be ticket offices and canteens at stations such as Brighton and Oaklands in times gone past.

Carolyn has undertaken many jobs on our suburban railways, from starting as a guard and a PSA conducting ticket checks and selling tickets to a senior PSA dealing with complaints and ministerials, checking emergency buttons and attending accidents, including a tragic accident at Salisbury just over 20 years ago. At that time, Carolyn was a stationmaster, undertaking more jobs that involved safety, including working with train control to set the signals, waving the safety flags and removing trolleys and other debris from the lines.

Carolyn also has shared with me that she was a PSA on charter trips to the Barossa Valley and on a special service for the late Queen Elizabeth II when she visited the Barossa Valley. On these trips, the suburban train travelled on a freight railway, so for safety reasons, special clearance had to be obtained. When Carolyn was a senior PSA, she had to attend accidents and signal-passed-at-red incidents, both important safety roles. I do feel for those train drivers who are involved in any kind of accident on our train network. It must be a very distressing experience.

I would like to express my gratitude to Carolyn for her significant service to our state as a PSA and driver and additionally as a union rep when she was part of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union, campaigning to deliver domestic and family violence leave and additional sickness leave. Carolyn finished her career as the vice-president, representing women in her union.

In conclusion, I will mention the automated protection system on the Seaford line, the planned $2 million upgrade to the Noarlunga interchange and $1.6 million to upgrade Clarence Park train station. I and my colleagues in the south, along with everyone on this side of the chamber, are fully committed to our public transport system. We are also committed to our heritage railways, which is why we are investing $9 million into essential upgrades for the SteamRanger Heritage Railway along our beautiful south coast.

This is an important bill that will save governments across Australia more than $5 million a year, which they will now be able to invest for their communities. It will also make the system more cost-effective and simpler for commercial operators. I thank the regulator, our train drivers, engineers and rail workers and especially Trevor Milde and Carolyn Meridew. I commend this bill to the house.

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (16:58): I rise to speak on the Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) (Fees) Amendment Bill 2023. South Australia is the lead legislator for the Rail Safety National Law, and this bill implements the 2011 Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreement that the national regulators for rail, maritime and heavy vehicles would progress towards full cost recovery from industry operators.

COAG set the following principles to guide the development of the cost recovery model: the model would be transparent; fees should be based on a national model; fees should be reflective of and proportionate to rail transport operator risk classification; fees should be aligned with the regulator's regulatory effort (the regulator is the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator); cross-subsidisation should be avoided, however, if cross-subsidisation is used it must be transparent; and the model should be simple to administer.

In 2016, infrastructure and transport ministers agreed to the recommendations from the first stage of the cost recovery review and tasked the regulator with developing a national model. Five years later, in May 2021, the infrastructure and transport ministers agreed that all governments, including the commonwealth, will fund the cost of regulating this sector.

This bill will make amendments to the Rail Safety National Law that are required to support the implementation of the new cost recovery model and associated changes. The Rail Safety National Law needs to be amended:

to allow a freight terminal to fall within the definition of a private siding;

to remove the requirement for accredited and registered persons to pay a fee when applying to vary their accreditation or registration;

to exempt tourist and heritage operators from the requirement to pay an annual accreditation or registration fee;

to require the National Rail Safety Regulator to ensure that tourist and heritage operators are recorded in the National Rail Safety Register; and

to allow the national regulations to prescribe a method, by which accreditation fees, registration fees and exemption fees may be increased each year, and to require the regulator to publish these fees.

The target date for the bill to come into operation is 1 July 2023. The regulator's engagement with industry on the cost recovery model to date means that the industry is aware of its targeted commencement from 1 July this year.

The proposed funding structure for the regulator is based on full cost recovery from commercial operators. The main feature of the new cost recovery model is that commercial rail or transport operators will pay an annual accreditation fee based on their risk profile and the regulatory effort expended by the National Rail Safety Regulator. Currently, an accredited commercial operator is required to pay a fixed annual fee of $15,000, as well as a variable annual fee that is based on track kilometres managed, track kilometres travelled or both.

Under the new cost recovery model, a commercial operator will pay one annual accreditation fee that is based on the operator's risk profile and the regulatory effort required from the National Rail Safety Operator to oversee the operator and other operators with a similar risk profile. The risk profile of an accredited rail transport operator will be calculated using the risk profiling tool developed by the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator. The tool uses data provided by operators to calculate the risk associated with three primary components:

1. Inherent risk, which captures risk to safety associated with the specific scope and nature of the operations for which the operator is accredited.

2. Management and control, which captures the processes and systems used by the operator to manage safety risks associated with their railway operations and the extent to which the operator's adoption of technology improves safety outcomes.

3. Safety performance, which captures the remaining safety risk, the residual risk, based on rail safety incident occurrences and performance data.

The profiling tool then weighs these considerations to produce a risk profile. Once the risk profile scores of the operators have been determined, they will be ranked from highest to lowest.

The second component of the cost recovery model is a regulatory effort. The Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator collects data on the regulatory effort allocated to operators, which permits the analysis of the amount of regulatory effort expended on an annual basis on individual operators and on groups of operators. The new model will pull together the risk profile scores and data on regulatory effort and group commercial operators into six cost recovery tiers.

The operators allocated to tier 1 will be those who have the highest risk profile and attract the most regulatory effort. The operators in tier 1 will pay the highest annual fee, while the operators in tier 6 will pay the lowest annual fee. Operators will have the ability to appeal if they believe they have been allocated to an inappropriate cost recovery tier. This new cost recovery model will completely remove the need for governments to subsidise the cost of regulating the safety of the commercial rail industry.

The regulator's cost recovery project took a comprehensive and consultative approach to the development of a cost recovery model based on risk and regulatory effort. The process was one of engagement with industry since 2018 via a reference group, workshops and meetings, with individual operators as well as governments.

This included a review of cost recovery models in other industries and rail internationally to identify any learnings for a model based on risk and regulatory effort, the development of a risk profiling tool for use in cost recovery, the collection of regulatory effort data for use in cost recovery, fee modelling, and consideration of policy issues associated with any change to the National Rail Safety Regulator's cost recovery model. A number of key policy issues were identified as the project progressed, including current areas of cross-subsidisation, the treatment of the tourist and heritage sector, and less complex rail operations.

The Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator conducted four formal stakeholder consultation phases, including stage 1, which occurred between September and October 2020 and consisted of chief executive briefings; stage 2, which occurred between November and December 2020 and consisted of risk profiling workshops and information sessions; stage 3, which occurred in December 2020 when the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator released its cost recovery consultation paper; and stage 4, occurring from June 2021 to 2022 and consisting of one-on-one meetings with larger commercial operators and group sessions for smaller and less complex operators on the financial impacts of the model.

In addition, drafting instructions were circulated to industry representatives for consultation from 8 to 17 June last year, and draft legislation was also circulated to industry and union representatives for consultation from 7 to 21 September last year. In addition to this comprehensive industry consultation, the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator met with commonwealth, state and territory government representatives during 2018, 2019 and 2021 to socialise the cost recovery model, update governments on its progress and discuss the funding of the tourist and heritage sector.

As a result of this comprehensive consultation with industry representatives, the regulator reports that discussions with operators on the financial impacts of the new model during 2021 and 2022 were extremely constructive. Even though many commercial operators will be paying higher fees, they understood and accepted the logic and application of this model.

The Malinauskas government recognises the importance of our railways, and that is why our first state budget, handed down by Treasurer Stephen Mullighan, included $1 million to fund a commission of inquiry to advise the government on the return of trains and trams to public ownership; $55.1 million for reinstating the construction and operation of the Port rail spur from the Outer Harbor line; $29.4 million for improving services to Mount Barker and the Adelaide Hills; $10 million to optimise the operation of the automated protection system on the Seaford line; and $2 million to upgrade the Noarlunga interchange.

It also included $1.6 million to upgrade Clarence Park train station, including activated pedestrian crossings; $1.5 million to install an activated pedestrian rail crossing near Kilkenny Primary School; $1.4 million to ensure the continued running of the Overland train service between Adelaide and Melbourne; $530,000 to construct a car park and kiss-and-ride space adjacent to the Tambelin rail station; $500,000 to install CCTV at West Croydon Railway Station; and $416,000 for investigations into how to better integrate public transport opportunities in regional areas.

Our Adelaide Metropolitan Passenger Rail Network has approximately 300 railway crossings, ensuring that pedestrians are able to cross the train and tram tracks safely. Promoting safety around pedestrian crossings is so important in ensuring that our communities are kept safe. In August last year, during Rail Safety Week, South Australians were reminded to 'stand back, look up and stay rail safe' when around trains, trams and railway lines. It only takes one moment of distraction or unsafe action to change a person's life and their family's forever.

The Rail Safety Week campaign focused on the most at-risk age groups, including school-age children and seniors, over a three-month period across social media, digital advertising, radio, and information teams at high-risk locations on the railway network. Pedestrians and cyclists are reminded to always take care around our rail network. Look both ways for trains and be aware of your surroundings at all times.

Another exciting aspect of our magnificent railways is the SteamRanger Heritage Railway. The 82-kilometre railway starts at Mount Barker Junction in the Adelaide Hills and stretches to Strathalbyn and Goolwa, linking the iconic Cockle Train to Port Elliot and Victor Harbor, along the oldest public railway line in Australia.

The state government currently administers a licence for the operation of the railway to an enthusiastic volunteer organisation, the South Australian division of the Australian Railway Historical Society Incorporated, who trade as SteamRanger, which is much easier to pronounce. SteamRanger has operated the railway as a family-friendly heritage tourism experience since 1986.

SteamRanger trains operate over 200 days annually and attract over 60,000 tourists per year, indirectly keeping dozens if not more people employed in tourism, accommodation, hospitality and essential services, as well as providing training, education and volunteering opportunities to the local community. SteamRanger has contributed $18.5 million of economic activity to the regional economy over a five-year period.

Funding SteamRanger services—including operating expenses, track and rolling stock repairs, maintenance and restoration—are predominantly met through ticket sales and donations. The SteamRanger heritage rail experience is a wonderful and unique tourist attraction for the Fleurieu Peninsula. However, recent engineering reports on the nine SteamRanger bridges recommended works to the Currency Creek, Watsons Gap and Hindmarsh River bridges, as well as the Tookayerta Creek and Finniss River bridges.

According to ARHS President Peter Charlson, if remedial works are not commenced within the next year or two SteamRanger faces the possibility of full or partial closure of the Victor Harbor line. The bridges over the Hindmarsh River and Watsons Gap, both heritage listed, are of concrete construction and both are subject to sea spray and salt-induced corrosion. The structural steel on the heritage-listed Currency Creek bridge, including the Tookayerta and Finniss River bridges, is continuously deteriorating due to corrosion.

With assistance from local independent member, Dan Cregan MP, the member for Kavel, SteamRanger lobbied the state government for assurance and support that the bridge repairs will be completed to maintain the operational integrity of the Victor Harbor railway—ensuring one of our state's biggest tourism icons literally remained on track.

In order to preserve this historic railway for future generations, the Deputy Premier on 5 February this year announced that the SteamRanger would receive a $9 million upgrade. The funding to upgrade our much-loved SteamRanger was approved as part of our Mid-Year Budget Review for 2022-23. Works on the Currency Creek, Watsons Gap and Hindmarsh River bridges, as well as the Tookayerta Creek and Finniss River bridges, will be completed over the next two years and managed by the Department for Infrastructure and Transport.

Short-term remediation works on the Currency Creek and Watsons Gap bridge are expected to be completed by June this year. These upgrades will enable the SteamRanger to provide ongoing, reliable, year-round heritage rail services with expansion opportunities from Mount Barker, ensuring that tourists from all over the world can experience the Adelaide Hills and Fleurieu Peninsula.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that heritage groups like SteamRanger do far more than just preserve our history. They offer significant contributions to the economic prosperity and emotional wellbeing of our local communities and are an example of how rail in South Australia is so very important. I commend this bill to the house.

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (17:13): I also rise to indicate my support for the Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) (Fees) Amendment Bill and I acknowledge that we are the lead legislator. I could actually say that the member for Adelaide has said everything that needs to be said and so I could keep this very short indeed and just say, 'Refer to the member for Adelaide, she has said it all.' I could sit down and save myself and all gathered here some time. I am not going to do that and I will run the risk of a little bit of repetition. I think it is important to provide a bit of time to this bill from my perspective, given the importance of rail in my region both currently and historically.

This piece of legislation arose from COAG, and when they were looking at this a number of principles were enunciated. Those principles in relation to this amendment are that the bill will be transparent, fees should be based on a national model, fees should be reflective of and proportionate to rail transport operator risk classification, fees should be aligned with a regulator's regulatory efforts and the regulator is the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator, cross-subsidisation should be avoided but if cross-subsidisation is used it should be transparent, and the model should be simple to administer.

One of the important things about this bill is that it is based upon cost recovery from the commercial operators. Importantly, those non-commercial rail operators, who are often voluntary, are exempt to the degree that the government will pick up the tab for the regulatory costs for those particular operations. That is important to me because I have one of the most historic railways in the country in the Pichi Richi Pass based in Quorn and the workshops in Quorn, which capture a huge amount of our railway heritage. It is an important asset to our state and one that, as I said, has been run by volunteers now for many years. That train goes through the beautiful Pichi Richi Pass and at times it goes all the way down to Port Augusta. It is an important part of our rail history in this state.

When it comes to determining what the commercial sector is going to pay in terms of that full cost recovery, a tool has been provided to calculate the risk associated with various operators. Different rail systems and different operators are going to have different risk profiles.

Three elements have formed the input into determining the risk profile of the commercial operators. These are inherent risk, which captures risks to safety associated with the specific scope and nature of the operations for which the operator is accredited; management and control, which captures the processes and systems used by the operator to manage safety risks associated with their railway operations and the extent to which the operator's adoption of technology improves safety outcomes; and safety performance, an important one, which captures the remaining safety risk, the residual risk, based on rail safety incident occurrences and performance data. The last one is important.

As I said, my region has been served in one way or another by rail for many years. Indeed, when you look at the export of iron ore from Whyalla, initially to Port Pirie and then over to the Eastern States, the first part of that journey, before it became a marine transport operation, was along what they refer to as the Tramway—privately held by BHP between Iron Knob and what was the Hummock Hill settlement, which eventually became Whyalla. That line still operates today. It is a narrow gauge line that services both the steelworks and the export of hematite from Whyalla. The magnetite is now sent down as a wet slurry in a pipeline from the Middleback Ranges.

There has been a long history in Whyalla when it comes to rail. When you look to the north, given Port Augusta, or part of it, is in my electorate, rail has a very proud history in Port Augusta with the workshops in Port Augusta. It was essentially the crossroads of the rail system in Australia, with both the north-south Ghan rail and the Transcontinental from the east to the west of our vast continent. It has always played an important role.

Indeed, one of the federal members, Laurie Wallis, many years ago was a rail worker at Port Augusta before he became the member for Grey for the Labor Party. Laurie was asked if he were to lose his seat, which he did not, and he ended up retiring, what would he do. He said, 'I would go back on the tools. I would go back on the rail.' In a way, that was a measure of the man and the roots he came from.

There was another member from that area, from Port Augusta. I think he started in Quorn and he worked for the railway system as well and that was Gavin Keneally—an excellent footballer, by the way. He also came from a rail background and he was a minister in this place for many years. He was a fantastic local member and great minister. My dad knew him well, and in Whyalla they all thought he was an incredibly decent bloke, even though he came from Port Augusta. That rivalry was going on even way back then. He was a good man who was also heavily involved in rail.

This bill is about safety. The history in the communities that I serve when it comes to safety leaves something to be desired. The last death in 2000—it could have been BHP or it could have just been OneSteel—was one of the Savaidis brothers who was killed in a shunting accident in Whyalla. He lost his life. I think he might have been 42. That was a tragic loss. From memory, I think that was the last death at the steelworks. When you look at the operation as a whole, it would be remiss of me not to mention it was not a rail death, but I want to mention it because in a sense it illustrates an important point about the vulnerability of visa workers, at least some classifications of visa workers in Australia.

This was a Filipino man on a 457 visa who died in Whyalla doing a job that quite rightly the Australian workforce refused to do. They believed the job was inherently unsafe but, because of the vulnerability of workers like that, he was pressured into doing that particular job and he lost his life. He had a family in the Philippines who never saw their dad again. Obviously, he was the main income earner for the family. When we are looking at visas and looking at reforming that system, we have to remove the vulnerability of a lot of workers who come to this country on visas of one sort or another.

In looking at the history of rail accidents in my region, there was one that involved five men from Whyalla. They were driving to Adelaide, going across a railway crossing near Port Germein, and all five of these men were killed and a sixth was seriously injured. That is back in the late 1940s. You look at that and the impact that would have had on a community the size of Whyalla at the time would have been profound. These men were aged from their early 20s up to their 50s. That was an incredible loss. So it is important that in all we do we need to ensure that when it comes to our rail system it is as safe as it can be.

Port Augusta continues to play a role in our national rail system and an important role, but one obviously greatly diminished compared with what it was and that did have a marked impact on the Port Augusta community: the loss of jobs that resulted from the changes when it came to governance structures around rail, efficiency gains and this and that. It did have a significant impact, but Port Augusta still continues to play a role. Hopefully, one day some of the surplus workshops can be put to good and productive use.

Regarding the rail systems in my area, once upon a time we used to have a passenger system to Whyalla. I think it was in 1971 that Whyalla was connected to the national rail system, primarily to benefit BHP. For quite a few years, what they called a Budd car operated between Whyalla and Adelaide. Now it has stopped. Freight used to always get priority on that line, so it could take you five, six, seven or eight hours to get to Adelaide. It was just not competitive.

It is interesting when people come to see you about the reintroduction of passenger rail in regional South Australia they talk about Pirie, and they talk about Port Augusta, and they talk about Whyalla, and they talk about Port Lincoln. I guess I have to be the person who, you could say, plays the devil's advocate. When they come to see you about reinstating passenger rail, you say, 'Well, I don't think it's going to work. It's only going to work with a very, very heavy government subsidy, and freight is still going to be given the priority.' Essentially, passenger rail systems work where you have heavy population concentrations, and in our state, beyond Adelaide, we do not have heavy population concentrations, so the viability of passenger rail beyond the metropolitan area, and maybe the fringes of the metropolitan area, is just not really a viable option.

People do come to see me and say, 'Well, it could be high-speed rail,' and this and that, and you say, 'My God, they have been talking about high-speed rail between Melbourne and Canberra and Sydney now for years, even between Sydney and Newcastle. You've got big population centres there.' When you explain to them the cost per kilometre, they firstly do not believe you and, secondly, if they do, they are in a state of shock and they go away and generally do not bring up the issue anymore. I know that in what I am saying I am probably upsetting some of the people who have been real advocates of going in that particular direction, but it is not going to happen.

However, when it comes to the moving of bulk products in my region, rail is still incredibly important. Iron ore is the classic one in my region. Indeed, we had iron ore railed in from just south of Coober Pedy in the earlier years of this century. That ore was viable as long as the iron ore price was over $80 a tonne. It is well over that now, but for a period there it went well under $80 a tonne and OneSteel Arrium—I think it was Arrium at the time—was no longer viable, so that mine was closed. There was another mine, the IMX mine, a magnetite mine with high copper concentrations. It was only a million tonnes a year, which came to Outer Harbor, but once it went under $90 a tonne that particular mine was no longer viable. Who knows what the future holds when it comes to this?

There is one rail system, one rail passenger service, that I do want to mention—I think I even made some notes about it, if I can find them—and that is the Overland. Of course, the Marshall government covered themselves in glory in not wanting to provide any funding, and so it was the Victorian Labor government that was willing to provide funding to keep that historic line going. It is deeply historic because that was the line, when we disembarked in Melbourne, that brought me to Adelaide. So it is a very historic line indeed, and we need to keep it running. This is part of my history.

The ship I came out on, the Ellinis, during the war years transported Curtin over to the United States to meet Roosevelt during that very trying time. That ship, which was a Greek-owned ship by the time we caught it, also had a historic element—alas, not because of me but because of that great Prime Minister: Curtin. I knew there was a Chifley connection, though, when it came to railway systems, because of course Chifley was also a driver of a steam locomotive. The Labor Party is littered with people who used to make their crust in the service of rail in this country.

Having the only integrated steelworks in the country, Whyalla produces those long products for rail. One of the great things about Whyalla is that it produces rail—

The Hon. Z.L. Bettison: My birthplace.

Mr HUGHES: —and of course the minister as well. It is the only producer of rail in this country. You only have to think about that for a minute or two as to just how important it is. When it comes to sovereign manufacturing capacity, the capacity to produce our own rail is incredibly important.

There was a more recent safety incident at the steelworks in Whyalla, and that was a runaway train—a train that escaped for a whole 11 minutes. When it escaped, it crossed eight level crossings within the steelworks. The speed limit within the steelworks for the trains is 15 km/h, but this train reached up to 50 km/h before it was slowed down and controlled. The consequences of that, the threat to life it represented, were incredibly serious.

To take you back to this bill, all that we can do to improve safety on our rail systems is incredibly important. It is especially important for communities like mine in Port Augusta, Whyalla and places further afield given the history of accidents, deaths, injuries and of near accidents in my community.

Indeed, SIMEC had to come out a year or two ago to warn the community about some of the things kids were doing on the rail line between Iron Knob and Whyalla. They were putting themselves at risk and they were putting the drivers at risk. Hopefully, that has all calmed down and people seem to be doing the right thing. Around our rail systems, we always have to do the right thing, whether operators, pedestrians crossing a railway track or all sorts of other people involved in the system.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Odenwalder.


At 17:34 the house adjourned until Wednesday 3 May 2023 at 10:30.

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