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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 4 Hansard (10 April) . . Page.. 897 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

have some concerns about the uncertainties of the Australian aviation industry and the impacts of that in our region.

The federal government announced last week that it had decided to abandon further investigation work on the concept of a fast rail service linking Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. The federal transport minister, John Anderson, said that any continuation of the study process would simply raise false hopes about the viability of the fast train. He said that the Commonwealth had concluded that the project would cost taxpayers about $50 billion and that this was far too much. I understand the Commonwealth's position. They are simply clearing the tables for a tough budget. Clearly, some bureaucrat in the Department of Finance has had a little list, and this one has bitten the dust.

I think we should have a debate about priorities. Plenty of things the Commonwealth does with its money could be challenged. I would have thought that a few thousand dollars per year to continue these studies would be an excellent investment in the long-term future of the nation. The studies need not be restricted only to issues concerning fast trains. We need reliable advice on long-term trends in the whole rail sector, drawing on information not just about fast trains in Europe and Japan but also about growth of rail traffic in North America.

We must also be concerned about the waste of the work already undertaken. The very fast train project and Speedrail have been the subject of intense study for at least a decade. Is all of that work now to be wasted? This is clearly a long-term issue which requires a long-term vision. At a time when we are having a population debate and continuing environmental debates, it is ridiculous to chop off this study process.

It seems particularly silly for the federal transport minister to suspend the study of rail options when he must know the position of aviation in this country is problematical. More starkly, the future of reliable and good value aviation services in this region is particularly unclear.

Let me look at the national position first. It is quite clear that Qantas will maintain well over two-thirds of the market share for the foreseeable future. The cut-price operators remain in a classic aviation bind. They need to attract business traffic to survive, but their cost basis requires a level of service provision which will not attract a business traveller. Moreover, any marriage of Virgin with a partner operator could take us back to the good old duopoly days, back to the safety of parallel scheduling and identical fare structures.

Added to this is the declining attraction of air travel for leisure. It is quite clear that current world tensions will lean to an increase in the incidence of terrorism rather than a diminution. It seems that a determined terrorist can be thwarted only by extreme security, invasive surveillance and exhaustive baggage searching. Over time this will create a new pattern of consumer costs, delays, and inconvenience. This pattern is unlikely to diminish over the next decade. It is more likely to become the norm.

That is why we cannot drop studies of alternative transport modes. There is also a social justice component to this. Governments have an obligation to investigate cheaper modes of transport for those who are less affluent.

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