Page 3882 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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Just have a quick look at the Nightlink taxi service. The security for the taxi ranks will not go far enough. The $227,000 in the appropriation has been allocated but does not include security guards or more police—although I notice that in the hearings last week the minister mentioned that there may be some security guards. For some reason, strangely enough, he was reluctant to point that out until he was closely questioned in the hearings; then he finally admitted that there might be some security guards. He was not concerned about the question of policing those Nightlink taxi service stands. Again, according to the minister, that was a matter for the police minister.
I find this peculiar. Why does the minister responsible for transport not acknowledge the fact that he has to work with the police minister to ensure this? Bus interchanges, buses, bus routes and Nightlink stands in Civic are a joint problem. Haven’t they heard of this whole-of-government approach to providing better and safer services? Clearly not.
Of course, we welcome the government’s initiative on the victims of sexual assault crime. We welcome the engine immobiliser program. We welcome the motorcycle anchor points initiative, which is going to be deployed in Civic and I think some town centres. Of course, we welcome the road safety action plan. I will have more to say about the road safety action plan later.
I turn to the fleet replacement strategy. The announcement of 25 new buses needs to be analysed closely to see any advancement to the position of our bus fleet. The upgrade will affect only 100 of the 273 buses of the total fleet of 379 that are over 12 years old. Also, the 100 buses will not be on line in their entirety until 2012. During the hearings last week, the minister was unable to expand on what, if any, engineering benchmarks or Australian standards will be adhered to. In fact, his response was:
The engineering benchmark, quite frankly, is the registration requirements for the bus.
That is not good enough. Any bus that is re-engined or refurbished is going to go over the pits and be registration checked, but there surely must be a standard that the government adheres to. When the government decides to appropriate funding to increase its bus fleet and part of that initiative is to re-engine 12-year-old buses to extend their life to 20 years, where is the engineering standard?
For some reason, the minister was unable to advise us on that. What is the Australian standard where we know that a 12-year-old bus can be safely refurbished and given a second life to take it to 20 years? I have no doubt that those standards exist, but we want to see those standards tabled here. We want to know that the government is on the right course and is able to really breathe life back into an ageing bus fleet. So far we do not have that much confidence, because for some reason the minister is ducking and weaving.
Let me have a quick look at the timetable changes. There are some welcome initiatives. The runs to Russell and other centres of employment are to be applauded—no question about that. There have been a number of old services re-introduced into areas which have been previously hit hard; they are to be welcomed.
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