Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am eternally grateful to the government for providing the equity required to allow the Australian Rail Track Corporation to invest $1.2 billion in the upgrade of the coal chain going to Newcastle. It means getting more coal to the Port of Newcastle more quickly and more efficiently. That is fantastic news for the Hunter's economy.

But with any of these big projects come problems. This means, of course, more trains going past more suburbs on a more regular basis—more noise, more vibration and, of course, more coal dust. I want to support those who are making calls to have those wagons covered so that dust does not emit from those wagons, polluting the environment, causing respiratory problems in the valley and making a mess of nearby homes, which regularly need to be washed down.

But, of course, during the construction phase there are other problems, and today I want to make another appeal to the ARTC to start doing the right thing by a number of residents in my electorate who are adversely affected by that construction: people in Station Lane in Lochinvar, people in Winders Lane in Lochinvar and—not so much with the construction—and people living in Elizabeth Street in Telarah, who live an arm's length from the railway track. I know they have been there a long time, but once upon a time they suffered a couple of transport trains a day and three or four coal trains and today it is coal train after coal train after coal train, and they last for up to eight minutes as they pass by, causing noise, dust and vibration problems.

These residents understand progress and they support this injection into our local economy; they just want a noise barrier. It would only be a few hundred thousand dollars. What does the ARTC say? They say they are not doing anything down south in Telarah; all the track work is further up the chain.

Of course that is nonsense, Madam Deputy Speaker. The trains are only becoming more numerous, more noisy. They are running on a more regular basis because the work further up the track is allowing more trains to be sent down through Telarah. I make a very strong appeal to the ARTC today to forget all the technical rules, to move in and to provide those often elderly people in the suburb of Telarah a noise barrier so they can live their lives in some comfort without having to put up with the noise and vibration coming from that nearby train track.