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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 1736 ..

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (12.15), in reply: I want to speak briefly in closing this debate. I understand that it is the will of the majority of members of the Assembly, notwithstanding my concerns, to proceed with this trial according to the framework set out in Mr Kaine's amendments to Ms Horodny's proposal and that this will effectively be an indefinite time trial under these arrangements, until such time as the Assembly considers the report that is due to be brought down in August 1997. While the Independents and the Greens have chosen to go with the Government on this trial, I would urge them to consider seriously in the intervening two months how they are going to respond when the report comes out and what view they are going to take when further such trials are proposed in the future premised on further such hypothetical passengers that Mrs Carnell has talked about.

I take Ms Tucker's point that improving public transport does improve patronage, and one of our arguments all along has been that reducing service quality on the ACTION network has led to passenger reduction. I quite understand that the corollary of that is true as well, namely, that if you improve frequency of service you make it more attractive and you improve passenger numbers. I think that is a perfectly reasonable proposition. However, I remain unconvinced that ACTION could not have provided that service if it was felt that this was a gap in the service provision.

The Greens and the Independents need to consider what they are going to do when the Government proposes that Deane's be able to pick up and set down passengers in the ACT on weekdays as well as weekends, when the Government proposes that other interstate bus companies pick up and set down passengers within the ACT. They need to consider what they think about the remarks of Mr Cooper from Deane's, reported in the paper, that if the trial is successful we could work towards compatibility of fares, that is, some sort of system where Deane's take ACTION fares and vice versa. We have to consider why Deane's would want to do this for just a couple of routes operating on the weekend, picking up maybe half-a-dozen passengers, according to Mr Humphries's estimate. It is clear that Deane's believe that there is a wider agenda at work here than just picking up a couple of passengers on a couple of existing routes. It is clear, from what Mrs Carnell said earlier in this debate, that that is Mrs Carnell's intention as well.

While this trial has gone ahead, this provides an opportunity for the Greens and the Independents to think about their position and where they want to take public transport in the ACT. I think we are going down a dangerous path with this trial. The reality is that, where private operators have been given the opportunity to operate public transport routes in other States, the result has been that they have not met the frequencies they were contracted to meet, there have been problems with interaction between different bus companies in terms of meeting timetables and changeovers, and the inevitable result is some level of cherry picking of the nice convenient routes that are easy for the private operators to make a buck on, while it is left to the public transport system - the ACTION buses - to pick up the unprofitable and unpopular routes.

Mr Speaker, make no mistake; we need to ensure that we have a quality public transport system. We have seen from this Government a commitment to downgrading public transport in the ACT over the last 21/2 years.

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