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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-06-22 Daily Xml
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PUBLIC TRANSPORT

The Hon. M. PARNELL (15:54): Yesterday, I attended the 8th South Australian Transport Infrastructure Summit here in Adelaide. At the conference, there was the usual government presentation, where spending on resleepering and electrification of the suburban rail network was trumpeted as a bold new commitment to public transport when, in reality, it is backlog maintenance. Whilst electrification is welcome, it really just brings South Australia into the 20th century, not the 21st century.

Unless initiatives such as this are accompanied by a major expansion of new lines and increased frequency, it will not deliver on its potential. Whilst the Seaford extension and some proposed tram extensions are welcome, they are not enough. The conference was also told that there would be post-electrification frequencies during peak hour on our rail network of 10 minutes and 30 minute services at night. I will believe that when I see it because the community has been dudded before with empty promises. So, we hope that this is not one of those. In fact, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve on lines with single-track running.

What I want to do today is compare the findings of two reports relating to public transport that were released earlier this year. One is by the Property Council of Australia and the other by the Australian Conservation Foundation. The Property Council's report, released in January this year, is entitled 'My City: The People's Verdict'. This survey looked at the importance and performance of 17 liveability attributes. These attributes included health care, schools, cleanliness, recreational opportunities, culture, safety, nature environment, jobs and affordable housing, but the two indicators I want to talk about are public transport and road infrastructure.

Based on over 4,000 interviews, people in all cities in Australia, except Canberra, believed that a good public transport service was more important to liveability than a good road network. In Adelaide, it was 37 per cent for public transport compared to 30 per cent for roads. In other words, more people nominated a good public transport network as important to the liveability of Adelaide than good roads. If that is a reasonable assessment of what people say they want, how, then, does the government's spending priorities stack up?

That brings me to the next report by the Australian Conservation Foundation, which is entitled 'Australia's public transport: Investment for a clean transport future'. The analysis by ACF showed that, over the past decade, all levels of government spent 4.3 times more on the construction of public roads and bridges than they did on public railway construction. The ACF's Sustainable Cities Program Manager, Monica Richter, said:

As people feel the pinch of rising petrol prices and concern about carbon pollution increases, more Australians are using public and active transport, but government planning and expenditure is not keeping up with this trend...We need governments to tip the scales and prioritise investment in sustainable transport. Two thirds of the transport budget should be spent on public and active transport and one third should be spent on roads,' Ms Richter said.

The report also shows a graph with each state's 10-year average spending on roads versus their spending on other transport modes as a percentage of gross state product. The data for South Australia shows a very high level of spending on roads compared to other transport expenditure: 0.61 per cent of GSP spent on roads compared to just 0.15 per cent on the rest. So, more than four times as much is spent on roads. Again, to quote ACF, as follows:

At last the train line is being electrified and some additional railway built, but much more needs to be done. A target of 10 per cent of all trips by public transport by 2018 will not be enough to provide resilience for Adelaideians from the cost impacts of rising fuel prices.

That figure of 10 per cent is from the State's Strategic Plan. The Environment, Resources and Development Committee of parliament recently recommended that should be raised to 25 per cent. But the figures are even worse when you consider some of the dodgy accounting that is done, such as allocating the Dry Creek Rail Depot's $157 million to the transport budget when it really belongs in the health budget because they moved it only because of the new hospital.

If the state were serious about responding to the challenges of the future and, in particular, the inevitable impacts of rising petrol prices brought about by peak oil and the pricing of pollution, we must get serious about putting in place public transport infrastructure that enables public transport to be the mode of choice for most people and most trips into the future.

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