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Adjournment Speech

Date:
2nd September

Subject:
Rail Services (Response to Opposition Standing Order)

" The New South Wales rail system is a sorry saga. In 1996, when I worked in occupational medicine on a private basis, I did the medical examinations on about 150 apprentices. At that time the rail system was split into three different groups. The contract for apprentices was no longer let as one and the apprentices complained at the medicals that they had to have three interviews instead of one, which was supposedly more efficient. I gather that fewer and fewer apprentices were trained.

There has been a nationwide refusal to invest in education of skilled labour, particularly in trades. When I was with Sydney Water the anti-discrimination laws that prevented compulsory retirement at 65 years of age were introduced. I put in place a workplace health program so that older workers could remain fit.

However, that did not happen in the railways. The suggestion from the Waterfall inquiry was that the driver had a heart attack and, on that basis, a large number of drivers took redundancy or retired. A matter of considerable concern is that the shortage of drivers was caused by a lack of attention to driver training or driver fitness. I know from a casual acquaintance that a man went off on stress leave and could not work in State Rail because he came to the conclusion after studying the system that the dead man's handle system was not safe, it would cause an accident and somebody would die. He was sent to Coventry and given a very hard time. The accident at Waterfall showed that when the driver became disabled the system did not work and death was caused.

Of course, that middle-aged man on stress leave has never been taken back and is still immensely disadvantaged financially. Unfortunately, that is the level of commitment to quality in rail.

When Brian Langton was Minister for Transport he ordered 100 new Olympian carriages, as we all know. That order was postponed and the carriages that they were to replace were sold to New Zealand private operators, who could not believe their luck at getting good carriages at such a cheap price. The shortage of rolling stock meant that there was none on the Macarthur to Parramatta line and other lines.

The shortage of rolling stock caused a lot of overcrowding in carriages and fewer trains, and more people had to drive, particularly in the Campbelltown and Parramatta areas. As a result, there were road blockages, which led to the demand for the western orbital. When the western orbital was being built with Federal money—the ruckus about Western Sydney transport problems had reached Canberra by that stage—I moved an amendment to insist on a rail easement along the western orbital route, but the Government would not support it.

The Government will not build public transport infrastructure even when it is clearly needed. I asked the Government why it chose the Chatswood to Epping rail route rather than the more populated Lane Cove Valley route. Dewy-eyed Scully said, "I just want to let those students at the UTS get out of the train from Sydney so that they can go to university."

What a lot of nonsense. I think the M2 contract probably did that. At any rate, at the first whisper of grapeshot, Minister Scully buried the rail a lot deeper and it did not come out across the Lane Cove Valley. He abolished the University of Technology, Sydney [UTS] railway station. Bob the realtor asks, "Can we sell it? Yes, we can." The Government is flogging off the UTS campus at Ku-ring-gai, unless the local groups can save the historic building and that important site.

The Chatswood to Epping railway should have gone to Carlingford, with a wire link at Granville. If it had it would have allowed the Penrith line, the Windsor line and the Liverpool line to go to Chatswood and provide a major link and an addition to the Sydney network. Because that was not done, one now has to zigzag from the main line at Strathfield, which is almost useless. Western Sydney is growing and people want to go to Chatswood. Of course, there is not much demand at present. No-one in their right mind would take a job in Chatswood if they lived in Liverpool or Western Sydney. It is too difficult to get from one area to the other.

The tunnel-boring machine involved in the Chatswood to Epping segment is very expensive to set up. It would have been much, much cheaper, even if that line were not to be used, to have continued on with the tunnel to Carlingford. Ideally, it would have gone to the north-west sector, where it is absolutely necessary that there be public transport. But this Government has no vision for the future. We have tried a number of times in the past to save the Casino to Murwillumbah segment. Hopefully, some money will be allocated to achieve that now because of the imminent Federal election and the fact that marginal seats are involved—which are not good reasons for building rail lines in certain areas and not in others. But there is an obvious need to link the Murwillumbah line to the Queensland system. That is extremely important for the development of that area of the State. But, again, the New South Wales Government has shown no commitment and no vision.

The Government talks about its rapid clearways with no switching lines. It is beyond me why the crossovers between Redfern and Central—some of the most detailed in the world—worked perfectly well before but do not work now. I am told there are not enough controllers who know how to drive the system. Perhaps that it is true, because signal boxes now have far fewer staff. Surely, given the advancements in switching electronics, the system should work. It is extraordinary that what could be switched manually in the 1930s cannot be switched using today's technology.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: They had to get spare parts out of European museums!

The Hon. Dr ARTHUR CHESTERFIELD-EVANS: I would not be surprised at that. As to on-time running—which commuters really need if they are to use trains rather than cars—train services have been totally unreliable. To me and to most commuters, it is inexplicable that the system has got much worse than it was. I do not know whether it has to do with driver shortages or whatever, but poor on-time running and general unreliability of the system is nothing short of a disgrace. I do not know what can be done to rectify these problems, but the Minister will have to do much better than he has done. The absurd splitting of the former rail systems into three different entities, based on some theory of economics through competition, clearly was a complete failure and a farce. I will never forget that after the Glenbrook rail disaster Minister Carl Scully had people from all sections of the rail system meet in, I think, room 1136. We all crowded into the room, courteously offering each other seats.

When the people from the three different rail networks, including the Rail Infrastructure Corporation, were assembled the Minister said, "I do not want an inquiry. Please, don't suggest an inquiry because that would derail all the new arrangements that we have put in place and make things very difficult. But ask any question you would like." I asked, "Who is responsible for rail safety in New South Wales?" They could not figure out who would answer the question. One said, "No, that's not us. Perhaps you should answer that." "No, it's not us either. Perhaps so and so should answer that." "No, no, perhaps someone else should answer it." Everyone was very courteous, but no-one had a clue who ultimately was responsible for rail safety. I think those responses answered the question. These reorganisations and the endless churning seem to have resulted in far less being delivered. This is a worry. It has happened during this Government's watch. It is totally unsatisfactory."