Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is plenty to grieve about in Western Australia at the moment. I want to use this opportunity to talk about how this failed privatisation of the Grain Freight Network in Perth, which took place in 2002, is continuing to wreak havoc in Western Australia. On Saturday, I was driving back from Albany to Perth and the roads were absolutely crowded with grain vehicles—a level of grain vehicles that I have never seen before on Albany Highway. If we look at what has gone on with this privatisation, it really tells us that we have to beware of governments that are getting out there to fill budget holes and, in that process, creating a great economic disadvantage for their state.

As we predicted back in 2000, what has happened is that there have been very significant cuts in the Grain Freight Network. Indeed, last month we saw 500 kilometres of grain lines that were closed in the South West of the state. For a farmer in Kulin, that has added around $3.82 per tonne. And in the catchment of those tier 3 lines it is estimated that this year there will be an extra $2 million coming out of farming budgets to pay for the increased cost because of this rail closure.

What is really bizarre is that we know that CBH, Co-operative Bulk Handling, want to operate trains over these rail lines. They are prepared to take them over and operate trains. But, because of a deal done with the current state government, building on the inequity of the earlier Liberal coalition government, we have seen the change to the agreement. So Brookfield can simply refuse to enter into a commercial arrangement with CBH, or a reasonable commercial relationship with CBH, and nevertheless keep access and keep entire control of those lines. They no longer have to maintain them to any significant extent. It has been estimated they need to put a bit of weed spray around them, but their obligations have been totally reduced in a secret 2009 agreement that has been made by the Barnett government with Brookfield. This is not something that is simply impacting on farmers and rural economies; it is also having a major impact on road safety and on the sustainability of those local shires, who are estimating that their cost of road maintenance now is going to go up significantly, and they are looking at a 30 per cent increase on rates—again, a completely unsustainable situation.

It is not only in Western Australia that we are seeing the errors and the potential disruption of a failed and ill-considered privatisation. I am using this forum to raise what I believe is a very serious safety issue on the Melbourne metropolitan rail network. In the course of my role, I attend many rail functions around Australia, and people come to me and tell me things that are going on within the industry. A wide range of people have given me reports about what they consider to be the very parlous state of the track in the Melbourne metropolitan rail system—that there are an unprecedented number of faults on that line and that the private contractor, MTM, are simply not addressing these issues seriously. They are doing patch-up jobs; they are plating over these cracks rather than replacing the rail track because they are seeking the on-time bonus. They are seeking to reduce the amount of time the rail is out of action and seeking to reduce the amount of money spent on maintenance. It has been put to me—and certainly from the photographs I have seen it would appear to be so—that there is a prima facie case that the state of the rail we are seeing today is very similar to the state of the rail, in Hatfield in the United Kingdom, which in 2000 led to a derailment with the loss of four lives. Exactly the same problems were identified: there was a private operator leasing the railway tracks and simply sweating the asset. They were seeking to get the maximum out of that asset without any regard for the long-term viability of that network; indeed, it would appear, they did so with perilous disregard for the safety of the people travelling on that rail network.

I have raised this; I have been so deeply concerned about this that I have raised it in several forums. A couple of weeks ago at the Australian Railway Association, I raised this matter with the CEO of MTM, Andrew Lezala. He said there was no problem with their maintenance; their maintenance plans were all developed with Public Transport Victoria. But that does not give us any comfort. It does not show that any auditing of the work has been done, and that is what we need. We need someone to physically go and inspect these railway tracks and actually have a look at what has been done. Unfortunately, there is probably not the expertise in Public Transport Victoria these days to successfully do that.

For that reason, I have personally contacted the National Rail Safety Regulator and alerted them to this, because they are responsible for accrediting this rail line. I have alerted them to what I consider to be very serious breaches. I have also been working with the Public Transport Users Association which has gone out and done some inspections. They have launched a formal complaint with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

When one has been privy to the stories we are regularly hearing about the rail in Victoria, one has a moral obligation to ensure that some progress is made on this matter. Here, today, I call upon the National Rail Safety Regulator to go out there and inspect this rail line in Melbourne, and tell us whether or not the reports we are hearing from a wide range of people within the industry are true. If they are, we are putting the public transport users of Melbourne in peril. We are also presiding over a degradation of that rail network and, when these particular contractors are finished the period of their franchise, they can simply walk away and leave the state with a degraded asset. We have in Melbourne a classic example of a very poor privatisation exercise which has allowed an asset to be sweated and public safety to be compromised.

I will use my remaining time to go back to Western Australia and outline how atrocious this whole procedure has been. The sale was made in the year 2000. The sum for the sale of the entire network—the locomotives and the lease fee for some 49 years—was roughly $500 million. The company subsequently sold that on in 2009 for over $800 million—they took $300 million out of the system without there being any substantial upgrading. We were told at the time of the privatisation—the secret deals that were done—that there was going to be $400 million invested in upgrades. When we came into government we found that in fact there was absolutely no obligation to do so contained in the agreement.

We see here the final iteration. Notwithstanding an injection by the federal Labor government of over $130 million into this network, the private operator and the state government actually walked away from their obligations, and now not only the farmers but anyone who uses our rural roads are being put in jeopardy. (Time expired)