Page 3378 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 14 November 2007
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today—and I bet there are not too many people here who have travelled to Sydney by train recently—you will note that you are surrounded by elderly people or age pensioners and young, probably sole parents and disability pensioners. Of course, trains are a child-friendly way of travelling, but for some people it is a cost-effective way of travelling.
To combat climate change, we must improve public transport. Rail is an efficient form of transport that can carry high loads of people. We should be not only expanding it as light rail within the ACT but also lobbying the government in every way we can to connect us with Melbourne directly by rail and to improve the services to Sydney.
The Australian Railway Historical Society already provides a variety of services to the Canberra community. These include educating visiting school students, from both the ACT and interstate, and entertaining people, including disabled and frail members of the community. Mr Gentleman made reference to a trip that he has taken. If I had time, I would also love to do one of their weekend trips to parts of the Blue Mountains and elsewhere, where one is wined and dined and generally has the experience of a train journey, which is a unique experience. It is not like being on a bus, where you are stuck in the same seat for the whole trip. You can move around; you can go to the dining car. We find that it is an incredibly popular option, and that is all done gratis for us by the Australian Railway Historical Society.
We do not perhaps realise the tourism potential of the Australian Railway Historical Society museum. That is something we could start spruiking a lot more, by including it in publicity campaigns to come to Canberra. A lot of people do not have access to trains, especially regional people, and I think there are children and families who would really enjoy that. But I wonder if they know about it when they are just coming cold to Canberra.
The society carries 5,000 to 6,000 passengers a year on their weekend trains and they are already fully booked until the end of the year. They train people free of charge for local emergency services and federal agencies. They employ two full-time fitters, as well as two office staff—one full time and one part time. That is the small contingent of paid workers, but of course there is a much larger contingent of voluntary workers. They have also trained many apprentices. They are actually part of our apprenticeship program in the ACT and, if it were not for them, we would not have those places for fitters and other apprenticeships that are very much related to rail.
The railway society has been part of the ACT for 26 years and since 1981 has grown and developed with the community to become a vibrant and engaging part of Canberra life. Steam locomotive 1210, a steam train, hauled Canberra’s first revenue-earning train, and it is one of the society’s prize possessions. It is a major part of Canberra’s history; it should be conserved, and the society is doing that.
However, ever since I have been in the Assembly the society has had concerns about its future at that site. It has been seeking an assurance for some time. At the moment there is the potential for a 10-year lease on its current site, but that lease can be pulled away at any time, at the will of the government. In a way, that does not give a sense of security when you have the amount of machinery that the society has. We have already heard the figure of $40 million for relocation.
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