❓ Debate regarding the adequacy of freight rail track maintenance between Perth and Bunbury, focusing on the impact of privatization and alleged misleading statements by the previous government. The current government deflects blame and accuses the opposition of hypocrisy.
AnsweredQoN 592Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
Is there any truth to the claims made by the member for Mitchell in Parliament last week that the Government has spent insufficient money on the maintenance of the freight rail track between Perth and Bunbury? Ms A.J. MacTIERNAN
AnswerView source ↗
The member for Mitchell’s speech in the Parliament last week was one of the most amazing contributions by a member of the Opposition, and it plumbed new depths of either ignorance or hypocrisy. The claim made by the member for Mitchell was - . . . the Australind is capable of travelling at 120 kilometres an hour. But guess what? It is doing only an average of 80 kilometres an hour and it slows down to 60 kilometres an hour in Perth. He also said - In the past couple of years this Government has spent insufficient money on the maintenance of the track. So much so that only a week ago a Westrail worker - A now endangered or even extinct species - told me that there were 21 temporary speed restrictions on the Australind route. . . . all because this Government will not do anything to improve the infrastructure of that track. Is that not an extraordinary claim? Those people, including Dan the rail privatisation man, who were in the last Government will know that it is true that we are not spending any money on track maintenance - because the track has been privatised. For once, Dan the rail privatisation man is right: insufficient money has been spent on the rail track. He is dead right that the fundamental problem for the Australind is that it is subject to an enormous number of speed restrictions. He is dead right that it has gone backwards in the past two years. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What are you going to do about it? Ms A.J. MacTIERNAN: We are going to expose the stupidity of the Opposition. We stood in this Parliament two and a half years ago and said that this is what would happen. We told the then Government that it should not go down this road. We said that if it wanted to privatise the freight business, it should by all means do so, but it should not privatise the management of the rail track because the asset would be sweated; it would go downhill. That is precisely what happened. What makes this worse is that the then Minister for Transport, Hon Murray Criddle, said when spruiking the sale - A result of the sale would be the transfer of the continuing track upgrade and maintenance program to the private sector and the removal of that burden from taxpayers’ shoulders. We, the public of Western Australia, were comprehensively misled by the previous Government. It sold an asset worth over $1 billion for $580 million. The coalition Government told us that part of the deal involved the expenditure of $400 million on track upgrading. When the Australian Labor Party took office and looked at the contract - which it was not allowed to do before it got into government - it found no provision for the $400 million - not even a vague undertaking. It is very difficult for us to improve the performance of the Australind when, under the discredited regime that was established by the previous Government, the rail track infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating.
Ms A.J. MacTIERNAN replied: The member for Mitchell’s speech in the Parliament last week was one of the most amazing contributions by a member of the Opposition, and it plumbed new depths of either ignorance or hypocrisy. The claim made by the member for Mitchell was - . . . the Australind is capable of travelling at 120 kilometres an hour. But guess what? It is doing only an average of 80 kilometres an hour and it slows down to 60 kilometres an hour in Perth. He also said - In the past couple of years this Government has spent insufficient money on the maintenance of the track. So much so that only a week ago a Westrail worker - A now endangered or even extinct species - told me that there were 21 temporary speed restrictions on the Australind route. . . . all because this Government will not do anything to improve the infrastructure of that track. Is that not an extraordinary claim? Those people, including Dan the rail privatisation man, who were in the last Government will know that it is true that we are not spending any money on track maintenance - because the track has been privatised. For once, Dan the rail privatisation man is right: insufficient money has been spent on the rail track. He is dead right that the fundamental problem for the Australind is that it is subject to an enormous number of speed restrictions. He is dead right that it has gone backwards in the past two years. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What are you going to do about it? Ms A.J. MacTIERNAN: We are going to expose the stupidity of the Opposition. We stood in this Parliament two and a half years ago and said that this is what would happen. We told the then Government that it should not go down this road. We said that if it wanted to privatise the freight business, it should by all means do so, but it should not privatise the management of the rail track because the asset would be sweated; it would go downhill. That is precisely what happened. What makes this worse is that the then Minister for Transport, Hon Murray Criddle, said when spruiking the sale - A result of the sale would be the transfer of the continuing track upgrade and maintenance program to the private sector and the removal of that burden from taxpayers’ shoulders. We, the public of Western Australia, were comprehensively misled by the previous Government. It sold an asset worth over $1 billion for $580 million. The coalition Government told us that part of the deal involved the expenditure of $400 million on track upgrading. When the Australian Labor Party took office and looked at the contract - which it was not allowed to do before it got into government - it found no provision for the $400 million - not even a vague undertaking. It is very difficult for us to improve the performance of the Australind when, under the discredited regime that was established by the previous Government, the rail track infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating.
The member for Mitchell’s speech in the Parliament last week was one of the most amazing contributions by a member of the Opposition, and it plumbed new depths of either ignorance or hypocrisy. The claim made by the member for Mitchell was - . . . the Australind is capable of travelling at 120 kilometres an hour. But guess what? It is doing only an average of 80 kilometres an hour and it slows down to 60 kilometres an hour in Perth. He also said - In the past couple of years this Government has spent insufficient money on the maintenance of the track. So much so that only a week ago a Westrail worker - A now endangered or even extinct species - told me that there were 21 temporary speed restrictions on the Australind route. . . . all because this Government will not do anything to improve the infrastructure of that track. Is that not an extraordinary claim? Those people, including Dan the rail privatisation man, who were in the last Government will know that it is true that we are not spending any money on track maintenance - because the track has been privatised. For once, Dan the rail privatisation man is right: insufficient money has been spent on the rail track. He is dead right that the fundamental problem for the Australind is that it is subject to an enormous number of speed restrictions. He is dead right that it has gone backwards in the past two years. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What are you going to do about it? Ms A.J. MacTIERNAN: We are going to expose the stupidity of the Opposition. We stood in this Parliament two and a half years ago and said that this is what would happen. We told the then Government that it should not go down this road. We said that if it wanted to privatise the freight business, it should by all means do so, but it should not privatise the management of the rail track because the asset would be sweated; it would go downhill. That is precisely what happened. What makes this worse is that the then Minister for Transport, Hon Murray Criddle, said when spruiking the sale - A result of the sale would be the transfer of the continuing track upgrade and maintenance program to the private sector and the removal of that burden from taxpayers’ shoulders. We, the public of Western Australia, were comprehensively misled by the previous Government. It sold an asset worth over $1 billion for $580 million. The coalition Government told us that part of the deal involved the expenditure of $400 million on track upgrading. When the Australian Labor Party took office and looked at the contract - which it was not allowed to do before it got into government - it found no provision for the $400 million - not even a vague undertaking. It is very difficult for us to improve the performance of the Australind when, under the discredited regime that was established by the previous Government, the rail track infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating.
Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What are you going to do about it? Ms A.J. MacTIERNAN: We are going to expose the stupidity of the Opposition. We stood in this Parliament two and a half years ago and said that this is what would happen. We told the then Government that it should not go down this road. We said that if it wanted to privatise the freight business, it should by all means do so, but it should not privatise the management of the rail track because the asset would be sweated; it would go downhill. That is precisely what happened. What makes this worse is that the then Minister for Transport, Hon Murray Criddle, said when spruiking the sale - A result of the sale would be the transfer of the continuing track upgrade and maintenance program to the private sector and the removal of that burden from taxpayers’ shoulders. We, the public of Western Australia, were comprehensively misled by the previous Government. It sold an asset worth over $1 billion for $580 million. The coalition Government told us that part of the deal involved the expenditure of $400 million on track upgrading. When the Australian Labor Party took office and looked at the contract - which it was not allowed to do before it got into government - it found no provision for the $400 million - not even a vague undertaking. It is very difficult for us to improve the performance of the Australind when, under the discredited regime that was established by the previous Government, the rail track infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating.
Ms A.J. MacTIERNAN: We are going to expose the stupidity of the Opposition. We stood in this Parliament two and a half years ago and said that this is what would happen. We told the then Government that it should not go down this road. We said that if it wanted to privatise the freight business, it should by all means do so, but it should not privatise the management of the rail track because the asset would be sweated; it would go downhill. That is precisely what happened. What makes this worse is that the then Minister for Transport, Hon Murray Criddle, said when spruiking the sale - A result of the sale would be the transfer of the continuing track upgrade and maintenance program to the private sector and the removal of that burden from taxpayers’ shoulders. We, the public of Western Australia, were comprehensively misled by the previous Government. It sold an asset worth over $1 billion for $580 million. The coalition Government told us that part of the deal involved the expenditure of $400 million on track upgrading. When the Australian Labor Party took office and looked at the contract - which it was not allowed to do before it got into government - it found no provision for the $400 million - not even a vague undertaking. It is very difficult for us to improve the performance of the Australind when, under the discredited regime that was established by the previous Government, the rail track infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating.
Ms A.J. MacTIERNAN replied: The member for Mitchell’s speech in the Parliament last week was one of the most amazing contributions by a member of the Opposition, and it plumbed new depths of either ignorance or hypocrisy. The claim made by the member for Mitchell was - . . . the Australind is capable of travelling at 120 kilometres an hour. But guess what? It is doing only an average of 80 kilometres an hour and it slows down to 60 kilometres an hour in Perth. He also said - In the past couple of years this Government has spent insufficient money on the maintenance of the track. So much so that only a week ago a Westrail worker - A now endangered or even extinct species - told me that there were 21 temporary speed restrictions on the Australind route. . . . all because this Government will not do anything to improve the infrastructure of that track. Is that not an extraordinary claim? Those people, including Dan the rail privatisation man, who were in the last Government will know that it is true that we are not spending any money on track maintenance - because the track has been privatised. For once, Dan the rail privatisation man is right: insufficient money has been spent on the rail track. He is dead right that the fundamental problem for the Australind is that it is subject to an enormous number of speed restrictions. He is dead right that it has gone backwards in the past two years. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What are you going to do about it? Ms A.J. MacTIERNAN: We are going to expose the stupidity of the Opposition. We stood in this Parliament two and a half years ago and said that this is what would happen. We told the then Government that it should not go down this road. We said that if it wanted to privatise the freight business, it should by all means do so, but it should not privatise the management of the rail track because the asset would be sweated; it would go downhill. That is precisely what happened. What makes this worse is that the then Minister for Transport, Hon Murray Criddle, said when spruiking the sale - A result of the sale would be the transfer of the continuing track upgrade and maintenance program to the private sector and the removal of that burden from taxpayers’ shoulders. We, the public of Western Australia, were comprehensively misled by the previous Government. It sold an asset worth over $1 billion for $580 million. The coalition Government told us that part of the deal involved the expenditure of $400 million on track upgrading. When the Australian Labor Party took office and looked at the contract - which it was not allowed to do before it got into government - it found no provision for the $400 million - not even a vague undertaking. It is very difficult for us to improve the performance of the Australind when, under the discredited regime that was established by the previous Government, the rail track infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating.
The member for Mitchell’s speech in the Parliament last week was one of the most amazing contributions by a member of the Opposition, and it plumbed new depths of either ignorance or hypocrisy. The claim made by the member for Mitchell was - . . . the Australind is capable of travelling at 120 kilometres an hour. But guess what? It is doing only an average of 80 kilometres an hour and it slows down to 60 kilometres an hour in Perth. He also said - In the past couple of years this Government has spent insufficient money on the maintenance of the track. So much so that only a week ago a Westrail worker - A now endangered or even extinct species - told me that there were 21 temporary speed restrictions on the Australind route. . . . all because this Government will not do anything to improve the infrastructure of that track. Is that not an extraordinary claim? Those people, including Dan the rail privatisation man, who were in the last Government will know that it is true that we are not spending any money on track maintenance - because the track has been privatised. For once, Dan the rail privatisation man is right: insufficient money has been spent on the rail track. He is dead right that the fundamental problem for the Australind is that it is subject to an enormous number of speed restrictions. He is dead right that it has gone backwards in the past two years. Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What are you going to do about it? Ms A.J. MacTIERNAN: We are going to expose the stupidity of the Opposition. We stood in this Parliament two and a half years ago and said that this is what would happen. We told the then Government that it should not go down this road. We said that if it wanted to privatise the freight business, it should by all means do so, but it should not privatise the management of the rail track because the asset would be sweated; it would go downhill. That is precisely what happened. What makes this worse is that the then Minister for Transport, Hon Murray Criddle, said when spruiking the sale - A result of the sale would be the transfer of the continuing track upgrade and maintenance program to the private sector and the removal of that burden from taxpayers’ shoulders. We, the public of Western Australia, were comprehensively misled by the previous Government. It sold an asset worth over $1 billion for $580 million. The coalition Government told us that part of the deal involved the expenditure of $400 million on track upgrading. When the Australian Labor Party took office and looked at the contract - which it was not allowed to do before it got into government - it found no provision for the $400 million - not even a vague undertaking. It is very difficult for us to improve the performance of the Australind when, under the discredited regime that was established by the previous Government, the rail track infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating.
Mr D.F. Barron-Sullivan: What are you going to do about it? Ms A.J. MacTIERNAN: We are going to expose the stupidity of the Opposition. We stood in this Parliament two and a half years ago and said that this is what would happen. We told the then Government that it should not go down this road. We said that if it wanted to privatise the freight business, it should by all means do so, but it should not privatise the management of the rail track because the asset would be sweated; it would go downhill. That is precisely what happened. What makes this worse is that the then Minister for Transport, Hon Murray Criddle, said when spruiking the sale - A result of the sale would be the transfer of the continuing track upgrade and maintenance program to the private sector and the removal of that burden from taxpayers’ shoulders. We, the public of Western Australia, were comprehensively misled by the previous Government. It sold an asset worth over $1 billion for $580 million. The coalition Government told us that part of the deal involved the expenditure of $400 million on track upgrading. When the Australian Labor Party took office and looked at the contract - which it was not allowed to do before it got into government - it found no provision for the $400 million - not even a vague undertaking. It is very difficult for us to improve the performance of the Australind when, under the discredited regime that was established by the previous Government, the rail track infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating.
Ms A.J. MacTIERNAN: We are going to expose the stupidity of the Opposition. We stood in this Parliament two and a half years ago and said that this is what would happen. We told the then Government that it should not go down this road. We said that if it wanted to privatise the freight business, it should by all means do so, but it should not privatise the management of the rail track because the asset would be sweated; it would go downhill. That is precisely what happened. What makes this worse is that the then Minister for Transport, Hon Murray Criddle, said when spruiking the sale - A result of the sale would be the transfer of the continuing track upgrade and maintenance program to the private sector and the removal of that burden from taxpayers’ shoulders. We, the public of Western Australia, were comprehensively misled by the previous Government. It sold an asset worth over $1 billion for $580 million. The coalition Government told us that part of the deal involved the expenditure of $400 million on track upgrading. When the Australian Labor Party took office and looked at the contract - which it was not allowed to do before it got into government - it found no provision for the $400 million - not even a vague undertaking. It is very difficult for us to improve the performance of the Australind when, under the discredited regime that was established by the previous Government, the rail track infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating.
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