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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-10-18 Daily Xml
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RAIL SAFETY BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 26 September. Page 809.)

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS (11:45): I rise to support this bill on behalf of Liberal members, and do so in my capacity as Parliamentary Secretary to the Liberal leader for State Infrastructure Plans. First, I would like to acknowledge the work done in relation to this bill by the member for Morphett, in another place, and his two part-time research staff, who have done a particularly good job in researching what is a significant bill. While not as large as the Legal Practitioners Bill which came into this council last night—and I think any of us who have looked at that see it as a very large bill—the Rail Safety Bill is still a large document of 105 pages with 158 clauses and 39 model regulations as attachments. So, it is a significant bill.

The government has introduced the Rail Safety Bill 2007 which repeals the Rail Safety Act 1996 and implements the National Rail Safety Bill 2006, developed by the National Transport Commission in consultation with rail organisations—including the Australasian Railway Association and the Rail, Tram and Bus Industry Union as well as rail safety regulators across Australia. The bill aims to provide for the safe carrying out of railway operations and the management of risk associated with those operations, and promote public confidence in rail transport. It is unanimously approved by the transport ministers through the Australian Transport Council, and it is part of the process to implement a nationally consistent framework for the regulation of rail safety across the national rail network over the next five years.

Rail operators and infrastructure managers are required to gain accreditation from the state or territory rail safety regulator before they may operate in that jurisdiction. This will improve national consistency of rail safety regulation, reflect contemporary developments and improve safety outcomes. When one looks at the number of accredited railway organisations in South Australia, it is interesting to note that there are some 45—including organisations as widely varied as TransAdelaide, OneSteel Manufacturing, the Limestone Coast Railway, Gypsum Resources and a lot of others. The need to have accreditation in South Australia is something we all agree on, and this bill certainly goes a long way towards making that accreditation nationally recognised. The bill will:

contribute to improved rail and workplace safety as well as protect existing rail infrastructure;

clarify the criteria for and purpose of accreditation;

strengthen the requirements for rail transport operators' safety management systems and consultation requirements;

allow for approval of compliance codes;

enhance audit and enforcement powers and options;

improve existing review mechanisms; and

provide for better sharing and reporting of data and information regarding rail incidents and accidents.

South Australia's existing legislative position in relation to independent inquiries into rail accidents or incidents, and provisions relating to drug and alcohol offences and testing, will be retained. The bill introduces consistency with the Road Traffic Act by introducing a new offence of having a prescribed drug in one's oral fluid or blood while carrying out rail safety work, and provides for a rail safety worker to be required to submit to a drug or alcohol test following an accident or incident. The bill also allows for a range of local minor variations; the detail of these is probably too great to go into now but they are seen as being relevant to rail safety. While this bill does not specifically apply to rail crossings, the issue of rail crossing safety is being discussed by federal and state governments and specific legislation, either stand-alone or amendments to this legislation, will be introduced once agreed upon. This is expected to be completed in early to mid-2008.

I would like to raise one other matter. An email was sent to the office of Dr McFetridge, the member for Morphett in another place, in relation to this bill and I would be grateful if the minister would bring back a response to this in the committee stage. The email asks about tramline and rail safety accreditation, and queries whether minister Conlon and Mr Hook, from the department, had gone through the proper rail safety accreditation processes to build a tramline. I wonder whether the minister would put the explanation of that on the record. My understanding is that the tramline was overseen by TransAdelaide and that TransAdelaide has accreditation, but it would be good to have that on the record.

I would like to take the opportunity to make some general observations about rail safety and rail transport, and rail passenger transport in particular. There has been considerable attention in recent times to derailments, whether they happen in other parts of this country or, quite recently, not very far from this building one afternoon, and I think the Hon. Mr Hunter was well aware of that situation as it was occurring. Of course, those matters are of concern to all of us.

Another matter is the publicity given to issues like doors on passenger trains not closing. As I say, we are concerned about those matters, but I would like to put those things into perspective with a little bit of personal history. As a young secondary student in 1969 and 1970 I travelled up and down the Gawler rail line for those two years and spent a lot of time on what were the old Red Hen trains. It is interesting that we now complain about doors opening while we are travelling, yet in those days everybody used to leave the doors open to get some air into the train. That was the only way of getting any air in, because often the windows were jammed.

The Hon. Carmel Zollo interjecting:

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: I wouldn't go too far with that, Carmel. Again, in the mid to late 1980s, when I was working part-time for Mr Neil Andrew and he still had his Wakefield electoral office in the city at that stage, I spent quite a bit of time travelling on the train and, in the mid 1990s when I was working for Alexander Downer in the Hills once a week, instead of driving up through the Hills I would catch a train into Adelaide and a bus up to Stirling. So, I spent quite a bit of time travelling on the train and, since my election to this place, I have used the train quite regularly. In fact, this week I have used trains as varied as the 6:40 a.m. from Gawler Central and the 9:50 p.m. train from Adelaide to Gawler Central. That gives you the experience of seeing the range of people who use our rail passenger service and the way in which that service is administered, and the behaviour of people in general is very good.

I am pleased to say that, particularly since former minister for transport Hon. Diana Laidlaw introduced customer service officers and security personnel to trains after 7 p.m., the number of people using the train services in the evening has increased enormously. When I first came here the trains were running up and down at night time with very few people on them but now, even with the 9:50 train on which I went home last night, a large number of people are using the train.

I think we need, however, to talk about some other aspects. Of course, we have the 2000 and 3000 series trains, which are a great improvement on the old Red Hen, but those trains themselves have been in service for a significant period of time. Obviously, there has been the incidence of doors not closing and other matters, but I am concerned about the amount of overcrowding we see on the trains. On some days, by the time some of the morning express trains that leave Gawler Central get to the Gawler station they are almost full. That is ridiculous, given that even those express trains then go on to pick up people at Smithfield, Elizabeth, Salisbury, Mawson Lakes and other places.

To my eyes, the overcrowding situation came to a head during the recent royal show week. The planning for services that week and the number of carriages provided on those services were very poor. A large number of people were travelling by train to the Adelaide Railway Station and using the excellent express service that goes out to the showgrounds, and there were several examples that week—certainly on the Gawler line but I know also on other lines—where ridiculous numbers of people were standing without any opportunity to hang onto anything as they were travelling. In fact, one morning I was on a train that was supposed to be an express train, but an announcement came that, because the train in front was completely full, the train I was on had to stop at other stations to pick up the overflow of people. That is unfortunate, and I am sure TransAdelaide can do some work to rectify that, particularly for the next royal show week.

Some might say that the cleanliness of trains is not a safety factor, but I certainly think that more work could be done in relation to the cleanliness of trains. It is almost impossible to see out of the windows of many of the carriages. In the case of the recent derailment, the first thing a lot of people wanted to do was to look out of the window to see what was happening. In many cases, you cannot see a jolly thing through those windows. Another thing that amused me the other day in relation to the cleanliness of the trains was that a lady who is vision impaired boarded the 6.40 a.m. train at Gawler Central, and she was very careful to make sure that her seeing eye dog did not lick the floor of the train because she was concerned about what it might pick up—

The Hon. R.I. Lucas interjecting:

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: That's right. I am just making a point. I know there are cleaners and I know they do as good a job as they can, but probably more work could be done in that area. No-one in this place would be surprised to know that I feel very strongly that there should be an extension of the passenger rail line into the Barossa Valley. There are many people who drive from the Barossa Valley to the Gawler Central station or other stations in Gawler to catch the train to Adelaide. When I was a young lad, one of the express trains coming down from Gawler originated from Angaston, another from Robertstown and, although it was on a different line, there were passenger trains that joined in with the main line at Salisbury that originated at the metropolis of Bowmans.

If you talk to people around Mallala, Two Wells and Virginia, many of them travelled to school or to work on a train line from Bowmans, going down through Mallala, Two Wells and Virginia. It is a great shame that we do not have that facility any more. Regardless of the Minister for Transport saying that it would be too costly to upgrade the track, the reality is that that track from Gawler out into the Barossa Valley and Angaston does carry very heavy stone trains every day. In my mind, if those tracks can carry those stone trains, they can carry passengers. I think the government should seriously look at that, particularly given the proposed changes to the urban growth boundary to the east of Gawler.

We heard much in the last budget about the upgrade of the sleepers on some of the lines in the Adelaide rail network, but a very minimal amount of money has been budgeted for the Gawler line and, in my view, that is a great pity because the lateness of trains is increasing. I heard the comment from TransAdelaide the other day that very few trains run late. My own personal observation is that very few trains ever arrive on time. If I choose to travel by train on a Tuesday morning now that we have 8 o'clock party room meetings, I should be able to catch the 7.04 train from Gawler, which is scheduled to get to the Adelaide Railway Station at 7.47. However, the unreliability of that train arriving at 7.47 means that I need to catch the 6.40, which stops at every station. The train is supposed to arrive at the Adelaide Railway Station at 7.41, and the other day it was five minutes late, and I thought that was a bonus. I think that is something we need to look at. I compliment the government and the developers for the addition of the Mawson Lakes station, which is very well used, but I think the time it is taking for every train to stop at Mawson Lakes has not been factored in very well.

One other matter that I want raise in relation to safety on passenger rail is the public address system in the trains. Some are very good and are used well by the drivers, and the drivers give excellent information about the stations they are approaching and also about any other matters. Certainly, the one I mentioned earlier, where the express train had to become a 'stop at all stations' train, we all knew about that because the driver let us know, and I think people are happy about that. However, there are cases where the PA system either does not work or is used very poorly by the drivers, and I think that is something that should be addressed.

The Hon. Sandra Kanck: When you can't see out of the windows, you need that.

The Hon. J.S.L. DAWKINS: Indeed. If you are in an aeroplane, train carriage or a bus and you are in the hands of other people who are transporting you, it is nice to know the best information about what is happening. If that happens, you do not get situations where people panic. I am concerned about the fact that, if you have a situation where the train is very full and there are lots of people standing and a situation happens and people are not aware of what is happening, you do get panic and people are hurt in those situations.

I do want to reiterate that I am a great supporter of public transport. I recognise that there are great costs involved in running public transport. However, I do urge the government to think more about some of the factors I have raised here in relation to rail transport in particular, because I think that the safer people are in using rail the more people we will get to use rail transport. It would certainly be a great advantage to have fewer people driving their car. With those words, on behalf of the Liberal opposition, I am very happy to support the bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of the Hon. I.K. Hunter.

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