Question Without Notice No. 51 asked in the Legislative Council on 17 May 2017 by Hon Jacqui Boydell
Parliament: 40 Session: 1
51. Hon JACQUI BOYDELL to the minister representing the Minister for Transport:
I ask my question on behalf of Hon Martin Aldridge, who is absent from the chamber on urgent parliamentary business.
I understand the state government holds the view that the AvonLink service is expensive and not economically sustainable and that the three-year trial was a failure.
(1) Is the minister aware that a considerable portion of the trial was conducted while Brookfield Rail was conducting maintenance on the line, disrupting normal services?
(2) Has the minister requested information from the Public Transport Authority on the impact this may have had on the results of the trial?
(3) Has the minister requested the Public Transport Authority to provide funding or schedule information for an integrated road and rail service for the Avon Valley?
(4) Will the state government continue funding the AvonLink rail service?
(5) If no to (4), how is the government proposing to service the communities that currently use AvonLink?
Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied:
I thank the honourable member for some notice of this question. The following information has been provided to me by the Minister for Transport, Planning and Lands.
(1)–(5) I am not sure where the member gained her understanding. Given the former Liberal–National government failed to fund the AvonLink service beyond 30 June this year, it must have been the National Party together with the Liberal Party that believed it should not be funded into the future; otherwise, funding would have been allocated. In respect to the Labor government having to clean up the many financial messes left behind by the former government, we are undertaking the budget process and considering this issue.