Page 1876 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 May 1990
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will tell you that people should compost these leaves, but, as residents have told me, there are more leaves than you could possibly compost and, what is more, it takes years to break these down and no ordinary householder could use them.
Mr Duby has also failed to act to preserve the rail service to the ACT, and this is another complaint of the people. Following the loss of the XPT in February, the changes announced by the New South Wales Government a couple of weeks ago will reduce the standard of our rail service from poor to virtually no service at all.
However, Mr Speaker, the New South Wales Government attempted to dress up the latest changes as being for the better. On the surface, it would seem that the replacement of the service arriving in Canberra at 4 am by one arriving at 10.30 pm was a change for the better. However, on closer examination it has turned out that the new service from Sydney was an existing commuter service which stopped at Strathfield, Liverpool, Macarthur and all other stops from Campbelltown to Goulburn. On most nights there was standing room only out of Sydney. So the New South Wales Government hoped that, by adding two carriages to this train, these problems would be overcome. This is highly doubtful, to say the least. But what has Mr Duby done about the New South Wales Government? It is the train that comes to Canberra; it is our train. It is not a commuter train for workers going in and out of Sydney.
Mr Humphries: We don't pay for the train.
MRS GRASSBY: But we need a train here. You do not give a damn about what is put on the road. You are talking about preserving our roads in the ACT. You have just put so many more buses and trucks on the roads that it is unbelievable.
The so-called morning service, which leaves Canberra at the ridiculously early time of 6.05, was also a commuter train that left Goulburn, all stops to Campbelltown, at 6.57 am. Two services to Canberra have been abolished and replaced by a Canberra extension to Goulburn services. The addition of Canberra passengers to these commuter services will in the short term result in overcrowding and in the long term lead to a further loss of patronage, giving the Greiner Government, which the Liberals will not worry about, another excuse to shut down the service completely. If you have nobody travelling on it because it does not work, why not shut it down?
Unfortunately, the Kaine Liberal Government made no protest to its Liberal colleagues in New South Wales about this further downgrading of the rail service. Rail passengers fell from the monthly average of nearly 24,000 in 1987-88 to less than 7,000 in March 1990. I think Mr Kaine, Mr Duby and Mrs Nolan will be pleased only when the rail service is abolished entirely. After all, Liberals and their partners do not travel by train. They travel first class, I understand, by plane.
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