AUSTRALIND
— OFF RAIL — ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORT
75. Mr R.S. LOVE to the Minister for Transport:
I refer to the Premier's
announcement on Sunday regarding the plans to close the Armadale line for 18
months, taking the Australind service between Perth and Bunbury off
rail.
(1) Why have no plans for alternative transport
arrangements been communicated to the users of the Australind as
part of the announcement?
(2) Has the
minister consulted the member for Bunbury, who in 2017 promised to deliver new
rolling stock for the Australind by 2023?
(3) Does the minister concede that
that promise has now been broken?
Ms R.
SAFFIOTI replied:
I thank the member for the question.
(1)–(3) Remember,
it was the National and Liberal Parties that were in government for eight and a
half years and sat there and did nothing for
the Australind line. When we won government, it was practically falling
apart. The former government was warned but it did nothing for eight and
a half years. We had to do a major refurbishment and we are building more Australind
train cars in the Bellevue manufacturing facility—locally made
railcars.
In answer to the member's
question, we are out for consultation. We are not closing the line tomorrow. It will be done in approximately a year's
time. Do members know what we are going to do? We will go and talk to
the passengers about what services they would like. We will ask them where
their destination is and what services they would like. We will make sure that
we will deliver excellent services to all those in Bunbury and on the way to
Bunbury through the member for Murray–Wellington's electorate.
I cannot recognise the member with the mask on! We will talk to the community
about what services they want. That is what we will be doing. We actually went
out a year in advance to outline what the plan would be and the need for the
shutdown, and we will talk to the community about the services. That is what a good
government would do. Members opposite wanted us to do all the planning on the alternative
services and then go out, without talking to anybody. I do not know how we
could plan the services without talking to anyone. We will be talking to the
community about the services they want.
We
will talk to all members of the south west about the replacement services. We
are already getting two new coaches with disability access to make sure
that everyone can be catered for. We are already doing that. We will do all we
can to make sure that we continue the excellent services. I am proud of this project. The Nationals WA members would not even
know where the south east corridor is. They would not know where Cannington or Armadale are. All they
have ever done is insulted the people of the metropolitan area and those
living along the Armadale corridor who were ignored for eight and a half years
under the Liberal–National government. The people of the south west,
despite $8.5 billion in royalties for regions money, did not get anything done
to the Australind—nothing.
During
that 18 months, we will also upgrade the train track, including moving more
passive level crossings to active level crossings. We will use it as an
opportunity to make the rail line safer. We will do a lot of work. I think it is a good idea to consult with
the community about what services they want before we plan for the
services. I think that is the right thing to do, and I am very keen to engage
with all the passengers to make sure that we
get an excellent replacement service. What will we see at the end of that time?
We will see brand new Australind railcars and a new station in
Byford, which the opposition would never have dreamt of delivering. We will see
a new rail station in Byford. I will talk about Armadale for a second. We will
remove seven level crossings and build a new elevated station. Do members know
why we are doing that? We are doing that because the Armadale council came to
us and said, ''We beg you to talk to the federal government to get a better
project because we want a new station and to remove the division in Armadale.
We beg you, as part of this Byford project, that you go and talk to the
commonwealth'', and we did. The City of Canning asked us for it. When we
talk about consultation, this was the consultation: the councils came and saw
us and we acted. We went to the commonwealth government and worked with it to secure the funding. In Canning, it was again
the council that came to us and said, ''We understand what you're
doing in Victoria Park. We want the same here. We have a whole revitalisation
program in the City of Canning. We've
got all this land around here that we want to use to create redevelopment. We
want an opportunity to be involved in Metronet.'' We worked with
the commonwealth government to deliver it. In Victoria Park in March 2019, no
less than the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, stood in Carlisle and talked
about how the level crossings were going to go. They asked us to match the
funding and we did. We combined all the projects in a time line so that we
could completely transform that rail line.
I know that some councils want more—I
understand that—because they know how exciting it is. Many of these projects were lobbied for by the
councils. The member asked which councils were involved. They lobbied us
for them. They asked for them and we worked constructively with the federal
government to deliver. I know it is strange to hear that a government would
listen to councils and work with the federal government, in three tiers, to
deliver, but that is what we are doing.
An article in WAtoday claims that the
Nationals WA now want to appeal to metropolitan voters. I will take the sticker
off the Leader of the Opposition's car first! Her car has a sticker on
it that insults Metronet.
Several members interjected.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members!
Ms R. SAFFIOTI: In eight and
a half years, I cannot remember any achievements of the Leader of the
Opposition when she was a minister—can anyone?—apart from
contracting out and shutting down the workforce of the Water Corporation
throughout regional Western Australia. I cannot remember anything.
This is a period of community
consultation and surveys. We will be working with the community. We apologise for the disruption, but we know that to get
transformational projects delivered, there has to be some disruption. We
will listen to the engineers and, of course, we listened to the councils that
came forward and said that they wanted a bigger project for Armadale. They
wanted a project for Cannington, and that is what we are delivering.